The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-29 00:00:00

METROPOLITAN GOSSlP—Thursday.

Ministers have returned to town, and held their first
Cabinet Council of the season. There were two absentees—
the Marquis of Hartington, who is electioneering in
Wales, and Lord Clarendon, whose absence is a sure
token that, however troubled foreign affairs may be, they
were not under discussion on Tuesday. Mr. Chichester
Fortescue's presence indicates that the topic of the day
was Ireland. And well it may be. Lord Russell's
letter—unless, indeed, it was intended as a pilot
balloon has not improved the position of the
Ministry. Even on the supposition that it was a feeler, it
is difficult to understand the object of writing it. The
policy which Lord Russell proposes is that which Mr.
Gladstone has emphatically repudiated over and over
again. The supposition of the Times, that because Mr.
Bruce said the Government were finding adifficulty in dis-
endowment, therefore they are desirous of changing
their position, seems to me quite unfounded. No one
doubts or has doubted all along that the Government had
a most difficult task. But the confession of this
difficulty no more implies shrinking from it than the
equally emphatic confession of difficulty in reducing the
public expenditure means that the Government intend to
make no reduction in the estimates. It is remarkable that
the Times, of all journals in the world, should have fallen
into this blunder. The very paper which contains it on
one page contains in another Mr. Lowe's explicit
announcement at the Gloucester banquet that disestablish-
ment and disendowment are both resolved upon,and that,
these changes accomplished, the Irish Church will be set
free from the trammels of the State. This is by far the
fullest explanation which has yet been given of the
Ministerial programme. It will rather cut away the
ground from under the feet of Mr. Disraeli, whose policy
was to " dish " his opponents by going in for a free
Church.
Mr. Lowe's speech last night was in many ways remark.
able. The announcement that the cost of the Abyssinian
war would prevent him from making any material reduc-
tions of taxation, will not surprise the readers of this
correspondence. Some weeks before Christmas I men-
tioned that Sir Stafford Northcote's estimate had been
exceeded by more than a million. Mr. Lowe also fully
bears out the statement which I made before the elections,
that Mr. Disraeli did not then contemplate resignation ;
although I believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer
is wrong in saying that the ex-Premier hoped for a

majority.
The excitement yesterday at Guildhall was something
tremendous. Business in the City was almost entirely
suspended. Not that any doubt was felt as to the course
which the Lord Mayor would take. From the first
opening of the proceedings in Overend and Gurney it was
felt that a sufficient case had been made out to send the
defendants to trial. Day by day the revelations became
more astounding and damaging, until they culminated in
the disgraceful episode whereof Mr. Edwards, the official
assignee, was the hero. Even not very strait-laced City
men were disgusted by this worthy's proceedings, and he
had to stand a storm of hisses and execrations such as are
usually reserved for wife-beaters and murderers from a
virtuous London mob. The pity is that he cannot be
touched by the law, and that the worst which can happen
to him is that he will be deprived of his post by the
Lord Chancellor. Mr. Stefancs Xenos promises some
further revelations about " the Corner House," and as he
pretty broadly intimates that Mr. Edwards extorted
money from him we may look for fresh scandals. Mean-
while, Dr. Thom is scarcely the hero of the day that he
deserves to be. He undertook the prosecution at his own
cost and in spite of enormous deterrent pressure brought
to bear upon him. Now, even the Times, which depre-
cated the proceedings, admits that they have been fully
justified. I learn that the directors of several other
companies are to be prosecuted. It may easily be con-
ceived, therefore, that the present are not happy times

for City men. The representative of one leading house

burst into tears when the Overend and Gurney committal
was announced to him. At the same time it is generally

admitted that the Lord Mayor could have taken no other
course than that which he has taken.

The much-talked-of submarine telegraph to India is
likely to he an accomplished fact at last. Government
have been repeatedly advised to give a guarantee for this
project, and, considering the national importance thereof,
that assistance might justly have been given. But this
is not a time to ask statesmen to incur a money
responsibility, and so the matter bas been taken
in hand and will be carried through by private
energy. The projector is Major Leveson, well-
known as an author under the pseudonym of " The
Old Shikaree." He has had some knocking about
in his time. He received a ball in his foot when fighting
in India twenty-six years ago. He had a sabre cut on his
head in the light cavalry charge at Balaklava, and a bullet
in his head at Inkermann, which rendered it neces-
sary for him to undergo the operation of trepan-
ning. Ire had a bayonet through his left side,
touching the lobe of the left lung, and was wounded
in the jaw at Lagos. He has shot tigers in
India, gorillas in Africa, and was at the capture of Mag-
dala. In spite of all these adventures and misadventures
he is in good health and so full of energy, that he, a mili-
tary man, has succeeded in bringing to a successful begin-
ning an enterprise which our City men have been talking
about for years, but never had the pluck to carry out. At
the first meeting of the projector and his friends, £450,000
out of the £550,000 required was raised. There can
scarcely be a doubt of the success of the undertaking. The
national importance of it in the event of Eastern com-
plications cannot be over-estimated.
The principle of industrial partnerships, like all new
ideas, progresses slowly, but it does not absolutely stand
still. A Bradford firm, of which Mr. Ripley, M.P., is the
head, have adopted the scheme. All the workpeople will
receive at the end of every year a share of theprofits inpropor-
tion to the amount of wages earned during the previous twelve
months. No investment of any capital is needed to give
a claim to a dividend. Whatever may be the final result
of this new idea, few industrial questions can be
more interesting. A few more trials on a large scale are
necessary in order to ascertain fully how it will work, but
already one objection, of which much was made at first,
has proved purely imaginary. It was at first thought that
the privacy of business arrangements, the just secrecy so
necessary to successful trading, would be largely destroyed.
Nothing can be further from the fact. A friend of mine
who has tried the experiment in a moderate establishment
tells me that hispeople know as little of his affairs now as they
did before the change was made. Towards the end of the
year the workmen meet and choose a solicitor or accountant
of recognised position, whom the firm admits to confidence.
All necessary facts are laid before him ; the workmen
know nothing, and care to knew nothing, but the dividend
which falls to them. They have such confidence in their
employers as to be willing to accept their statement with-
out inquiry. There then remains only the question
whether the advantage of the system repays the little
trouble it involves. My friend answers in the affirmative.
The scheme is good in principle, and there is no reason
why it should not in many cases work well in practice. It
would not answer in some species of trading Oy-aend
and Gurney's, for instance.
Amid all the revelations of rotten celnpanies it is satis-
factory to find that there is one employment which is both
honest and lucrative—the crossing-sweeper's. A day
or two ago it was mentioned in the papers that a sweeper
made as much as 30s. before breakfast on Christmas. On
ordinary occasions he will often make that amount in
a week, provided he is sharp and clever. There is
another employment which is more lucrative
At least. I have lately heard some curious revela-
tions of quacks. Ido not mean the vile black-
guards who go by the name of silent friends, but the com-
paratively harmless race who deal in patent medicines.

Everybody has heard of Parr's Life Pills. They were ori-
ginally prepared by a surgeon of Louth, in Lincolnshire,
who died about two years ago. He gave the prescription
to a person who, having risen from the streets, afterwards
rose to be a wealthy man, the proprietor of one of the
most successful journals now in existence, and a member
of Parliament for a Lincolnshire borough. He was then
' a commercial traveller, and in moving about he mentioned
these pills to his fellow-travellers, who generally spoke
well of them. The future senator thought that he might
as well turn these golden opinions to good account. So he
named the medicine Parr's Life Pills, puffed them well,
and they soon brought him in sufficient money to start the
successful journal above mentioned, and which made his
fortune. But as for the Louth surgeon, his was a case of
sic ros non robis mellifieatis apes. He reaped
• none of the golden harvest, and died as he had lived, a
country surgeon. " Solomon's Balm of Gilead " had a
still more extraordinary origin. The inventor was the
son of an Israelite residing in Hull, and was sent forth by
his father with a box of jewellery, and told to make his
fortune out of it. He went to Liverpool, and fell in with
a man of about the same extensive resources as his
own, but with plenty of inventive power. The pair
concocted a soothing mixture, advertised it to their last
shilling, and addressed some of it to a consignee in New
York. It excited the suspicions of the Custom-House
officers, was seized by them, and was paid for on the
ad val ,rein duty, about one-tenth of the selling price.
This was hard for the guileless Israelites ; but they had
their revenge. The Customs officials tried to sell the stuff,
but found no market, for it turned out to consist largely
of treacle. The Yankees admire 'cuteness, and Solomon
became highly respected. They purchased his nostrum,
and so there was balm in Gilead for the at one time almost
ruined Hebrew. In a second' ase pills were the vehicle to
fortune. A Yorkshire hosier, in a small way of business,
thought that patent medicines for the inside were
more lucrativo than stookiugs for the outside, K. he

made up his little pellets and silvered tl em,
in the hope that they would bring him in gold. His
faith was rewarded. He did so well at i e

that he brought up his son to regular medicine. The son
went to an adjacent county, where he hoped the fame of
the silver-coated pills would not follow him. Unfor-
tunately, the facilities for changing one's name were not
so great as they now are, and one day, at a large dinner
party, the doctor was asked if he bore any relation to the pills.
He could not deny the soft impeachment, but he was so
annoyed at it that he sold his interest for a very handsome
figure, and bought with it a share in the practice of a
London surgeon who a few months ago got into some
unpleasant quarrels. The practice turned out less satis.
factory than the pills, and the seller of the second and
purchaser of the first has had to begin life again by work-
ing up a new clientele for himself.

There have been some rather sharp debates lately in
the Ritual Commission. The commissioners comprise
men of all schools. The usual result of opposing antago-
nistic forces has followed ; the body does not move.
Various propositions have been made to effect alterations
in the services and the formularies of the Church, but
the cautions men have negatived them on the venerable
though scarcely time-honoured plea, "if you once begin,
where will you stop ?" This remark was made aforetime
by a parish clerk, when on the death of George IV. the
substitution of William" in the State prayers was
ordered. I think the clerk was as right as the commis-
sioners. If, as these seem to suppose, the Church is only
a house of cards that will come tumbling to the ground
when it is touched, cui bone the commissioners?
In spite of the cold night there was an immense gather.
ing at St. Paul's on Sunday evening. The new Canon, Mr.
Gregory, was the preacher of the evening. In face he is not
unlike Mr. Bright ; his voice is an enlarged edition
of the Bishop of Oxford's. The sermon was but
half an hour in length, and was in no way
remarkable. The service was marred by the indis-
position of the organ, which had a very severe
cold, and grunted and groaned to such an alarming extent
that it had to be silenced. The spectacle of this vast as-
semblage, with the soft light falling upon them from the
row of innumerable gas-jets round the dome, was very
impressive ; and one of the recent preachers said that,
though a by no means timid man, the sight did make him
nervous. The special preachers for February will be ap-
pointed by the new Bishop of London, and some curiosity
is felt in the matter, as the selection will give an indica-
tion of the manner in which Bishop Jackson will treat the
various theological parties. He can scarcely do better than
follow the example of his predecessor, whose impartiality
is admitted even by those who differ from his religious
opinions.

Of literary news I have little to tell this week ; but that
little is interesting. The Bishop of Oxford is getting £l,OOO
for the papers which he is bringing out in Good Words. The
Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol refused an offer of £5OO
to write in the same periodical. Messrs. Black are
bringing out a new edition of Lockhart's Life of
Scott, in the same style as the Roxburgh edition of Scott's
novels. Dean Milman's "Annals of St. Paul's" I
have just read in preparation for a quarterly review, and
I find the book interesting enough, but containing some
strange blunders as to dates, and even in grammar,
which no doubt so veteran a litterateur as the
Dean would have corrected if he had lived
to read the proof sheets. The first number of
the Queen's Messenger made its appearance to-day ; it is
a sixpenny weekly journal, intended to advocate admini-
strative Reform. The first number of the Temperance
Times comes out on Saturday. It is to be the weekly
organ of the London Auxiliary of the United Kingdom
Alliance, and is edited by Mr. Dawson Burns. The
shoemakers are starting a special organ, called
St. Crispin, which will contain the lives of cobblers who
have risen to eminence, such as Hans Sachs, Savage the
poet, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Fox the Quaker, Gifford of
the Quarterly Review, Kitto of the Bible Eneyelopcedia,
&c.

The Dudley Gallery has its private view to-morrow.
There was some talk of discontinuing this exhibition
after the opening of the new Royal Academy, but
although that building will have five times the space of
the present, the idea of closing has been abandoned, as it
may well be when I state that there were about 1,200
pictures rejected last year from the Dudley Gallery, a large
number of them simply from want of room. The Exhibi-
tion of British and Foreign Artists this year is not up
to last year's level. There are few works by
the leading French artists—none at all, for instance,
by Meissonier ; and there are several works which have
been exhibited on previous occasions. But the exhibition
is well'worth a visit, for the sake of Mr. Edwin Long's very
fine work, which occupies the post of honour. This
gentleman, who is the son of a Bath tradesman, is
rapidly rising to the foremost rank of artists. His
present work is an advance upon that which he
exhibited at last year's Academy. Like that, it
is a Spanish scene, and it represents a fair-haired lady
giving the Christmas alms in Seville Cathedral to a
swarthy gipsy. The contrast between the two is admi-
rable, and is well carried out in all the surrounding figures,
of whom there are about twenty. Bougareau has some
good works ; but Perrault's, " A Morning Meal " must,
after Mr. Long's picture, carry off the palm.
The Skating Club are in despair. W had two days of
frost, and there was a slight cream of ice over the ponds
in the parks ; but a thaw has set in, and to-day we are sit-
ting with extinguished fires and opened windows, those of
us who are skaters, and sighing for the frozen Arno and the
bitter cold of sunny Italy, mentioned in to-day's papers.

MISCELLAA'EOUS NEWS•

THF. LORDS OF THE ADMIRALTY.

The Carlton Club will certainly say that " the
country
is going to the dogs, sir," and the United
service and other professional clubs will re-echo the
cry. The members of the new Board of Admiralty
have just paid their first visit to Chatham, and instead
of having " private " (hired ?) carriages to meet them,
they drove from the station in cabs, just as though
they were Jack Tar himself. The customary guard
of Royal Marines was dispensed with. Their
lordships meant business, and they did it. Thy
had the usual conference with the heads of
the departments ; they visited four vessels in course
of construction, inspected the new steam factory, the
timber stores, which contain timber to the cost of
more than a million, but to the value (so far as the
doeiyard is concerned) of a tenth of that sum. They
regarded " Seely's pigs "
with special interest, and
no doubt we shall shortly hear that these famous
animals, reprieved by Mr. Corry, are at last brought
to the slaughter. They walked through the new
works, the dockyards, basins, &c., which will be com-
pleted some four or five years hence ; and they
wound up their visit by a rather rapid tour o!.. the
ropery.

THE
-.10. VOLI7NTE'-
_
"Hippophylax"—well ling Greek for "
Guard '6oHorse
letter on the a,.
voluntepit. " Hippophylax„points th " Tile*lst?Kes Lord Elcho's
' volunrteceeoersuntt
at
one volunteers accepted service as volunteers,
"..,nd have no claim to expect payment, either in
the shape of capitation grant or in any other
form, for their voluntary service. If they do so
they cease to be volunteers, and enter the category
of paid soldiers. Should they do this, they out
to consent without hesitation to be suiajeclecl
to military law, and to resign to the 'established
military authorities the nomination of their officers.
A. paid volunteer force would be the most expensive
force which this country could maintain, for volon=
teers are theoretically only available in tlitl
last
extreme of defensive war, and are useless for any
purpose of offensive campaigns," " Ilippophylax"
doubts if " practically" the volunteers could be
made of any use at all, since to call them out per-
manently would be to inflict such a paralysis upon
commerce as to force the country to make peace.
At present they could not keep the field for twenty-
four hours, for there is
,no sort of organisation) no transport, no commissariat, no hospitals, More-
over, if the volunteers were paid, they would become
rivals of the regular army, would no longer draw
their recruits from the richer class, which can afford
to serve without pay, but would compete for recruits
with the line. " Hippophylax" evidently has the
utmost contempt for the volunteers, and scarcely
veils it in courteous words. " They are ill-equipped
riflemen, who are only liable to fight on their oWil
doorstep." An invader who had run the risk of
defeat by our navy and regular army and militia
would not hesitate to encounter a, force which, how-
ever efficient in its individuA, elements, is totally
unprovided for the organisation of war, and
could not be equipped under six months.
The' volunteers are the result of a panic,
and the panic was as senselessly allayed as it
was senseleu,iy aroused. Let us spend our money in
l regularec— d soldiers,
bnad they if (i
like, t
fore
they won't be massed.
vol n n e i-s take ,h e i
icsnugAtio him of the Horseistheconelusiono Guards.fthewhole matter, accord..