The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-26 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MO DAY EVENING, JULY 26, 1869

the Picture Galleries are rapidly closing their exhibi-
tion. The Opera Company are announcing those
Benefit Nights which presage the immediate termi-
nation of their brief but radiant season. London,
with its upwards of three millions of inhabitants,
having had withdrawn from the enormous aggregate
of its population for awhole the one or two odd tens
of thousands which are in excess of those same three
millions, will be thereupon described absurdly enough
as empty.w Passed the interval of leisure, passed
holiday time for the worldat large, passed the long va-
cation; the Englishman's feastingtime of Christmas, and
the Frenchman's feasting time of the four de 1. an—with
the commencement of the ensuing year of 1870,
Parliament is already conscious that there will come
looming up, inevitably, another and a more formid-
able problem for solution than the Irish Church
Question, another, anda farlarger difficulty than that,
which will be deemed yet more imperative, than ever
di _1 that even now obsolete State institution, a
speedy, a comprehensive, and somehow, whether by
hook or by crook, a satisfactory settlement.
The Irish Laud Question ! That is what the
Lords and Commons are alike, even now, in
American phraze, prospecting. Justice to Ireland is
one among the foremost mottoes inscribed upon the
banner or escutcheon of the present Government.
The sincerity of the Ministerial determination to act
up to the principle therein embodied has been, as we
all now know perfectly well, very signally and very
nobly justified by the historical act of reparation just
in process of final accomplishment. Another act of a
similar kind but of a yet more considerable character, is
involved in the solution of the problem expressed by
that Irish Laud Question, as a matter requiring very
urgently indeed to be dealt with by the Imperial Legis-
lature. Many upon either side of St. George's
Channel have thought, and it must be said not ex-
travagantly that it cught, perhaps, by rights, to have
bad precedence of that other great difficulty, in the
settlement of which the estates of the realm have
been of late so long and so strenuously engaged.
Having dealt at length with the Irish Church
Question, having swept it out of view, at
last, as a cruel and indefensible anomaly, the
nation will no longer have any valid, or in
any way recognizable plea for postponing the
comprehensive consideration by the Legislature of
the far larger question involved in that matter of the
Irish land. What is more, every one understands
quite clearly that the Government of the day, this
Government presided over by Mr. GLADSTONE, is
perfectly prepared to deal with that Irish Land
Question so soon as the next session of Parliament,
the session of 1870 shall have fairly commenced.
One cf the principal Ministers of the Crown, for-
getting for the moment the reticence upon these de-
licate subjects expected from every individual
member of a Cabinet, blurted out frankly
the declaration that ho had a plan of his
own, already cut and dried, in his pocket, and
which he was prepared to submit to the conside-
ration of the House of Commons upon the first
available opportunity. Whatever the scheme may be
which the Ministers of the Crown, collectively, will
deem it advisable to lay before Parliament as the one
they will be prepared, in their capacity as an Admi-
nistration, to recommend seriously to the judgment
and decision of the Imperial Legislature—a scheme
of some kind in regard to the final settlement
of the Land Question in Ireland, Govern-
ment will have to prepare, and, before
next February will, for certain, have pre

pared. Meanwhile, what have we not all escaped
by means of the happy settlement in the sixtieth
minute of the twelfth hour, of that other long-vexed
question of the Irish Church ! We have escaped a
stormy political-religious agitation throughout the
country. We have escaped no end of extra-parlia-
mentary utterances. We have escaped an Adminis-
trative crisi3, a Parliamentary dead-lock, a collision
between the Lords and Commons, and consequently,
in plain words, a shock to the whole machinery
of the Constitution. Instead of having to
pass through anything of all this, we have

suddenly, all of us, wakened up from the indulgence
of the gloomiest foreboding to behold everything and
everybody as it were suffused with the couleur de
rose. Mr. GLADSTONE has found occasion to eulo-
gize the Lords, and to compliment the Opposition.
Lord GRANVILLE and Lord CAIRNS, when seemingly
at daggers drawn, have been suddenly recognized as
very cordially fraternizing. The whole of this
abrupt transformation of things has been accomplished
with the speed, and the general effect of a coup de
theatre. The recollection of all which, let us say, ought
not only to be agreeable in the re.tra=pect, but—what
is more practically to the purpose—ought to hearten us,
as it certainly cannot fail to hearten us, in our poli-
tical anticipations. Solved, as this delicate and com-
plicated problem of the Irish Church has peen
within these last five months, we have no reason
whatever to despair of our beholding, a few months
hence, that other great problem in regard to the
Irish Land cleared out of the pathway of legislation
by an equally happy effort at its solution.

TITE history of Mr. GRENVILLE MURRAY is a
play of so many acts, and of such rare complexity,
that a sketch of his remarkable career may not be
unacceptable now that he is in the zenith of his
fame. Whether there is any exceptional
moral to be drawn from his story is
doubtful; and the moral must in any case be
incomplete, for the story itself is yet unfinished. All
that can be done at present is to arrange the facts
so as to present this strange tale in a connected
form. Mr. GRENVILLE MURRAY has attained great
distinction only of late, but he has been a public
character for several years past. Mr. MURRAY spent
about ten years at Odessa, as British Consul-General
for the Black Sea ports, and his doings in that
capacity have been deemed so noteworthy that a
whole Blue-book of nearly 300 pages is devoted
to their narration. He was appointed in August
1858, and rose to distinction so rapidly as
to be the subject of leading articles in the
commercial papers by the beginning of the next
year. The complaints against Mr. MURRAY'S
administration as Consul-General were so numerous
and loud that even slow-moving diplomacy was at
length compelled to interfere. After a long cor-
respondence an inquiry into Mr. MURRAY'S
case was ordered, and a special delegate
was sent down by the Foreign Office.
It turned out that the CONSUL-GENERAL'S conduct
" had been marked by a habitual disregard of duty,"
and that he had " misused the powers entrusted to
him by his commission." He had granted passports
to persons who were not British subjects, without
taking any pains to ascertain whether they owed
allegiance to England or not. He had granted a
certificate to sell landed property to the widow of
an Englishman, such certificate being informal and
useless. It was clear, from his own admission, that
he had failed to levy fees legally due to the British
Government, and had thus improperly diminished
the receipts of the Exchequer. Far worse
still, he was found guilty of such irregu-
larities in the solemnisation of marriages that
it was doubtful whether some of them were not
invalid and their issue illegitimate. An Act was
passed in 1867 to remove all doubt on this point.
There were other and serious charges brought
against him, but these cases will suffice.
Such flagrant breaches of duty could not be over-
looked. Mr. GRENVILLE MURRAY was dismissed
by Lord STANLEY in May 1868. The
ex-Consul-General protested against his removal,
and carried on a long correspondence; but on the

13th of January Earl CLARENDON refused to hear
anything further.

On the 21st of January, just a week after the
Foreign Secretary's final decision, the first number
of the Queen's Illessenger appeared. It is needless to
particularise the nature and contents of that paper.
Suffice it to say that though it might have been out-
shone in foul and offensive abuse by some of the
publications of DRYDEN'S time, it was superior
in ribaldry to everything of the present day.
Beyond its coarseness, there was . nothing re-
markable in the Queen's Messenger, except its
inveterate hostility to the Foreign Office. It did not;
indeed, confine its favours to that one establishment;
but Earl CLARENDON'S department was decidedly the
leading object of assault. On June 10 the Messenger
came out as the Plain Speaker—in all other respects
the same—and the next week it became the

Queen's Messenger again. This number contained
a sketch portrait, entitled, "808 COACHINGTON, Lord
JAR-VEY." There could be no doubt as to the obj ect
at which this foul production was directed. It was
not only a plain assault upon the present Lord
CARINGTON, but upon his family in general; and his
lordship was not slow to resent it. Having received
information which convinced him that Mr. GRENVILLE
MURRAY was responsible for whatever appeared in
the Queen's Messenger, he sought and found the
ex-Consul-General on the steps of the Conservative
Club, and there caned him.
Then came the scene in the Marlborough-street
Police-court, and its issue the two trials. Lord
CARINGTON was charged with assaulting Mr. GREN-
VILLE MURRAY, of which there could be no doubt
whatever, equally little doubt that, though the pro-
vocation given was—presuming Lord CARINGTON to
have been quite certain that Mr. MURRAY was
answerable for the contents of the Queen's Mes-
senger—most grievous, yet the assault was unjusti-
fiable, and that Mr. MURRAY was entitled to the
protection of the law. This matter might
soon have been disposed of ; but, unfortunately
for Mr. MURRAY'S public status, he brought a second
charge against the peer of having provoked him to
fight a duel. Whether his lordship did feel anxious
for a more serious encounter with the ex-Consul-
General it is not worth while to inquire. It is suffi-
cient to know that this second charge led to a dispute
of evidence, and to that famous struggle which has
afforded the British public such a rare and choice
excitement. Lord CARINGTON'S solicitor declared
that Mr. MURRAY'S statement touching the provoca-
tion to a duel was "untrue," and for the purpose of
shewing that the complainant was unworthy of belief
a long cross-examination was entered into. In the
course of this Mr. MURRAY made certain admissions.
His son was the registered proprietor of the Queen's
Messenger; he himself had written in that paper,

but he could not tell exactly which were his articles and

which were not. All attempts to obtain his acknow-
ledgment to various specific articles failed. He wrote

so many hands, he urged, that he could not tell
which was his writing. The cross-examination
failed in proving that Mr. MURRAY had written
the abusive article on Lord °ARINGTON. Whether
the tin box, which, it was said, contained the"copy" of
Mr. MURRAY'S articles, will clear everything up, re-

mains to be seen. It was the tin box which gave rise

to the final fracas, for the Murrayites alleged that
it had been stolen, and made a desperate effort to
recover it.

The affair at the police court, however, has not
done anything to improve Mr. MURRAY'S public
position, for the simple reason that he admits
being the author of some articles in the
Messenger, and as every article in that detestable
print was discreditable, therefore Mr. MURRAY
must have written, some discreditable produc-
Nor can the anxious struggle for the
possession of the tin box bear a very favourable in-
terpretation. The same comment must be passed
upon one of the two trials which have arisen
out of this police-court fracas. Lord CAR-
INGTON has been tried at the Middlesex Sessions
for assault, and Mr. MURRAY is yet under inquiry on
a charge of perjury in swearing, as he did, that he
was not the author of the article on the peer and his
family. Of this unfinished case there is nothing to
be said at present. But of the assault charge it
may be observed that Lord CARING TON made no
attempt to deny the fact that he had assaulted Mr.
MunnAy. The plea of " Not Guilty " was put in,
not as a means of staving off judgment for an un-
doubted breach of the law on the part of his lordship,
but in order that the full inquiry might reveal the
full circumstances of the case. This policy has been
successful to a certain extent, as it was at the police
court. Mr. MURRAY was again rendered extremely
uncomfortable. Passages in the Queen's Messenger
were read, and he was asked if he were
the author of them. He was asked
whether he had " violated all common
feeling of decency by attacking the dead and
maligning the living, by trading in slander, and by
sparing neither age nor sex," and he declined to deny
that he had done these things. He may not have
written the passages read, but his refusal to
say that he had not will certainly receive
its natural interpretation from the public.
Better, surely, to have taken the thrashing and said
nothing than to have stood in this position before
the world. The perjury inquiry will probably sheer
how far Mr. MURRAY'S extreme caution in declining
to answer questions was justified by circumstances.
Meanwhile there is, after all, a moral to this
unfinished—but nearly finished—story. It serves to
show that men of Lord °ARINGTON'S position cannot
safely indulge in the gratification even of a rea-
sonable resentment ; and it chews that all attempts
to revive, in this age, the foul slanders of a century
and a half back, must recoil upon their originators.

tons.

THE INTERN A7IONAL UNIVERSITY

BOA 7 RA CE.

There is little of interest to communicate at present in
regard to the Harvard crew, who still remain at the Star
and Garter Hotel, Putney. To-day, however, they move
into the White House, adjoining Simmons's boat-yard,
which they have taken for six weeks. It is most conve-
niently situate, close to the river, with a nice garden run-
ning down to the towpath, and is surrounded by high
walls, so that the men can enjoy the cool shade of the
trees in the garden without being molested by prying
eyes. They have not yet been out in either of their four-
oared boats, as they are not quite ready for use, having
been French-polished and otherwise prepared for prac-
tice, but it is highly probable that they will be out this
afternoon for the first time on English waters as a com-
plete crew. Hitherto they have merely paddled about
two and two in pleasure boats placed at their disposal by
the London Rowing Club, so as to acquire familiarity with
the Metropolitan course. On Saturday afternoon several
of them paid a visit to the Crystal Palace on the occasion
of the Dramatic Fete, and were much gratified with what
they saw, but especially with the fireworks, for the proper
display of which the evening was very favourable.
The names of the United States' oarsmen have already
been given by us, but we may as well state that the crew
row in the following order :-1, A. P. Loring, of Boston ;
2, G. Bass, of Chicago ; 3, S. W. Rice, of Roseburg,
Oregon ; W. H. Simmons, of Concord, New Hampshire,
stroke; Arthur Burnham, of Chicago, coxswain.
The Oxford four will in all probability be made up of four
out of the five following oarsmen :—A. C. Yarborough,
Lincoln College; F. Willan, Exeter; J. C. Timid, Uni-
versity ; S. D. Darbishire, Balliol ; S. H. Woodhouse,
University.

The Harvard crow is composed of fine muscular men,
two out of the number being especially grand specimens
of muscular Christianity—their powerful build and broad
square shoulders being something which oarsmen of this
country are not accustomed to see. They are particularly
anxious that it should be understoo.l they have not come
to Et gland as an hternational crew proper, representing
the American people, but merely as an University crew of
on 3 nation to do battle with an University crew of another,
and for this reason they have declined and will decline all
other challenges not emanating from the Universities ;
the race, therefore, ctnnot properly be called an Interna-
tional boat race, in the strict acceptation of the term, for
the reason given.

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TRADE AND FINANCE.

The most prominent feature in the financial world
during the past week is the resumption of specie shipments
from New York, which have been recommenced on a large
scale. A few montbs ago we pointed out that there was a
very largo balance of trace against the United States,
which could only be settled by remittances of
specie to this side, and although the balance has
been temporarily settled by heavy remittances of bonds,
the United States is still under very great obligations to
Europe. We have before us an interesting calculation of
the present indebtedness of the United States to Europe,
which, after being reduced to gold values and English
currency, may be summarised as follows :
Nine Months ended March 31, 1869.
Imports £60,719.000
Exports .E48,771,000