The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-08 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8. 1870.

Sport is proverbially cruel : meaning by sport not
mere contests of skill or of speed, but the pursuit of
game, and the more or less wanton destruction of
life. Supposing this country were still infected as of
old by wolves, or other ravening animals, the slay-
ing of ferocious creatures such as those would, as a
matter of course, be perfectly comprehensible. But
the destroying of the comparatively harmless fauna
of England for the mere idle display of dex-
terity, or as our neighbours have it pour
passer le temps, has about it an attribute
in no way defensible at any time or under
any circumstances—the attribute of sheer heartless-
ness. To one of the earlier victims of this idle search
after amusement one might be tempted to trace back,
as though it had been overheard by iEwp, the now
familiar axiom, " What's sport toyou, is death to us."
The blunting of the sensibilities by the force of
habit engendered among sportsmen of all kinds is
perhaps nowhere more strikingly illustrated than in
the well known suggestion of old IZAAK WALTON to
bis brothers of the Gentle Craft, as it is called (whe-
ther by a mere play of words, or by the sheer force
of irony, who shall decide?) when beseeching them
to impale the bait as though they loved it. One
need hardly go back 200 years, however, in order
w realise in this way the hardening influence
of Le Sport, pur et simple, if one only reads the last
new novel of the season, or glances at the light-
hearted competition which has just taken place
between the Lords and Commons of England during
the passing recess of these present hoddays of Whit-
sun i ide.

In that much-abused and much-bepraised novel of
"Lot hair," in which the ex-Premier has, at the least,
endeavoured to pourtray the manners and customs of
those who are vulgarly spoken of as the Upper Ter,
Tllousand, there is one description that is true
to the life, and that has about it not one touch
of exaggeration. It is the description given
by Mr. DISRAELI of one among the pet vices, we
are almost tempted to spe.►k of it as one among the
chet ished crimes, just now, of the fashionable world—
known as the pretty, dainty pastime of pigeonshoct-
jug. Not that the member for Bucks himself has
the faintest notio❑ apparently in his own mind of
there being anything but what is perfectly comme it
fuut in this kind of amusement. He describ s, it in
one of the least fantastic chapters of his most fantas-
tic book, without one momentary qualm. Pigeon
shooting it is to him, as it is to the b/ase'earls and in-
souciant marquesse4, whom he depicts as
the competitors, or as it is to the de-
licate-souled, dainty-handed Lady CORISANDES
and others whom he speaks of as merrily
jotting down upon their ivory tablets with turquois-
embossed pencils (the while, as with the Poet Lau-
reate's Lilian, their " silver treble laughter trill•th ")
the fluctuating scores of the Dove Murderers. Com-
paratively trivial though this fashionable vice of the
time may seem to many—it is, by reason of a special
significance of its own, to our thinking, one of the
foulest typical blains of which our social system has
reason now, as quickly and as effectually as possible to
rid itself. Exult as we may, and with some cause, over
the abolition of the old, idiotic, detestable,anil murde-
rous laws of duelling, which were held by our fathers
to constitute what was called in those days the
Code of Honour, we have small reason to pride our-
selves upon being in any way more humanized than
that 01,3, derided, duelling generation, so long as the
jeunesse dor ge of England take a pride to themselves
in the honours and glories won—s4ve the walk !
literally s ►ve the mark !—in the maiming, the tortur-
ing, and the murdering of a flight of doves !

IF M. JOURDAIN found satisfaction in the d iscovery
that he had been talking prose all his life without
knowing it, M.P.'s must be even more satisfied in
learning, on high authority, that they have been
obeyingpolitical economy all the session without know-
ing it. The satisfaction must be all the greater because
some of them have thought that they were
really violating political economy. The coun-
try gentlemen, for instance, who, or whose
fathers, five-and-twenty years ago, denounced the
joyless science as a new-fangled thing, the un-
cleanly offspring of Radicalism and shopkeeping, but
who, since Protection has been abolished, have been
the most devoted, if not the most enlightened,
disciples of the science, have been making their de-
votion known to all men by the frequent repetition of
certain phrases borrowed from scientific terminology.
"Freedom of contract" is one of these, and
it has been used, with happily little effect,
to obstruct the progress of the Irish Land Bill.
In fact they have been treating political economy just
as its earlier votaries of the Manchester school treated
it some thirty years ago. Then we heard a good deal
about the law of supply and demand, and the neces-
sity of not interfering between capital and labour, for
mill owners and coal owners did not like
to be deprived of the cheap labour
of little children who ought to have
been in the school or in the nursery. But the
instinct of the nation was too powerful for any
amount of authoritative dicta borrowed from science
"falsely so called," and the children were rescued
from the cruel bondage of the task-master, and were
taught before they were compelled to work. So has
it been with the Irish tenant. He has been set free,
so far as the House of Commons can free him,
from the tyranny of an evicting landlord.
And we doubt not that just as the Manchester school
now admit they were in the wrong when they
opposed the Factory Act 9, just as they now confess
that they misapplied their favourite science when
they used it to oppose. those Acts, so, in a little
while, Conservative Irish landlords will admit that
they were wrong in opposing the land bill, will con-
fess that they made a false use of political economy
when they urged the necessity of maintaining, before
all things, " freedom of contract."

For after all, as Mr. MILL has shown in an admi-
rable article in the current number of the Fort-
'nightly Review,' there are no such principles of
political economy as the Irish landlords suppose
they have been violating. Principles differ from
precepts. "The same principles require diffe-
rent precepts, wherever different measures . are
required for the same ends. If the interest
of landlords does not afford sufficient security
to tenants, it is not contrary, but in the
strictest conformity, to the teachings of political
economy, to provide other security instead. The
absolute power of landlords over the soil, is what
political economy really condemns, and condemns in
England as well as in Ireland, though its economic
mischiefs are not, in England, so flagrant. and un-
qualified," The truth is, the land tenure of this