The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-12 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times observes that England lies sick of pauperism,
and robust as may be the constitution of the patient, this
constant and increasing drain upon it is a very serious
matter. The new and somewhat peculiar mendicity
society now being tried at Blackheath seems toleffer one
of the most successful methods yet tried of dealing with
the evil. The society works in concert with the
relieving officer of the district, and by a system
of ticket-giving entirely dispenses with direct relief,
except in two cases, that of a starving beggar who
has a piece of bread given him, and of a destitute man
going to get employment who receives a third-class ticket.
The Times thinks the conjunction of the parish officers
with the society a most important feature in this plan.
So long as the two systems— he system of public universal
relief and the system, or no system, of private charities—
go on together side by side, without mutual concert,
there must be waste, confusion, and inefficiency.
There can be no guage of pauperism no com-
plete register of individual cases of mendicancy,
and no uniformity in the administration of relief.
These jarring systems weaken the sense of
responsibility in the Poor-law officials. Guardians are
d:sheartenNl, who see that while they are trying to keep
clown mendicancy the public are doing all they can to
encourage it. Relieving officers naturally grow careless if,
for au,ht they know to the contrary, the pauper who
applies to them for relief to-day received yesterday, or
may receive to-morrow, far larger assistance from some
charity or private benevolent hand. And then
society, absorbed in private almsgiving, cr content-
ing itself with subscriptions to general charities,
relaxes its vigilance upon the administrators of the
Peor-law ; and the result is in some cases indis-
criminate relief, in others defective relief or the improper
refusal of it, and all the irregularities notorious in the
present workhouse system. We do not, of course,
imagine that the authors of the Blackheath Mendicity
Society have discovered a panacea for pauperism. Such
an institution does not attempt to stop any of the sources
of pauperism except the great one of promiscuous charity,
and its success must much depend upon the energy and
fidelity of the relieving officer ; and in many of the large
parishes the staff of the board of guardians as at present
constituted is inadequate to sift the cases of mendicancy,
and the ordinary public relief is disbursed with next to no
dizscrimins,Lioin. On the other hand, such a society evidently
tends to strengthen the hands'of the Poor-law authorities.
The members of it must be keenly alive to the necessity
of a good Po r-law system with good men to work it, and
relieving officers will not only obtain through the society
valuable information respecting their districts, but will be
more likely to discharge their duties efficiently knowing
they are watched and criticised by those without. Though
local in operation, the proposal is, so far as it extends,
systematic and complete, it admits of indefinite extension,
and while moderating, in proper cases, the inevitable
harshness of the poor laws, it increases their general
efficacy.

The Standard comments upon the changes which the new
Bribery Act will be likely to produce in Irish elections. The
motion in the Common Pleas in Dublin, in the case of the
Sligo petition, throws light on the contemporary history of
Ireland. The petition was against the return of Major
Knox, the Conservative member for the borough of Sligo.
The motion decided on Friday was an application on the
part of Major Knox to have the place of trial changed from
Sligo to Dublin. It was contended that the excited state of
the neighbourhood would prevent a fair trial of the petition,
The decision is of great importance, being the first in
favour of a change of venue under this Act, and it is also
of consequence in sheaving the condition of this part of
Ireland. The evidence proved that a great deal of intimi-
dation had been used to check the support of Major
Knox, and the 'Standard observes that these scenes
throw some light on the marvellous sway which
the bishops and priests exercise in Ireland. It
is not the mere terror of disobeying them that
gives weight to their words. It is that in some
of the subtle ramifications of the Roman Catholic religious
system the priests have always the means of making their
wrath felt, and their flocks cannot see any escape from
the toils short of absolutely breaking with their Church.
This policy is a dangerous one to push 0 extremes. It
must sooner or later alienate the Irish masses from the
Roman Church, as it has done those of France and Italy,
but meanwhile it may be painful enough to convulse
our whole political system and render constitutional
government in Ireland a hollow mockery. If the
priestly party find that their violence defeats its object,
they may seek some more legitimate means of carrying out
their views. The promptness with which the Irish Court
of Common Pleas has recognised the dangers of the evil in
the present case is a hopeful augury.
The Daily News compares the manner in which the
criminal law is carried into effect in New York and in
New England, and illustrates the difference by two recent
verdicts. In one case a man, named Cole, committed %
fearful murder. and was a,,,,;+1-0,1 ,iio Komi,' or In-
sanity, though there was no evidence to that effect. In
Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the other hand, a highly
respected church deacon was tried for murder, and con.
demned to twenty years' imprisonment, though his mothei
had been insane, and the asylum physician gave
it as his opinion that the deacon was insane when th
murder was committed. Had it not been for a doubt
whether the murder had not resulted from a struggle, he
would have been executed. The leniency of New York is,
in the opinion of the Daily News, a dangerous symptom.
We are debarred from supposing that the jury was in-
fluenced by hostility to capital punishment, for it is now
the custom in the United States, in all procedures for
murder of the first degree, to interrogate each juryman on
that point, and to retain only such as are favourable to capital
punishment. But whatever may be the causes of this extra.
ordinary verdict, the salient fact is that a man freely
walks the streets of New York to-day, who, in almost
any other civilised community, would be confined nr
executed as a danger to society. And when such a fact
is possible we need not wonder at Erie-wars, Whiskey-
ring-aristocracies, or fraudulent voting. The condition of
society in New York has been much used to illustrate the
ultimate tendencies of popular government ; but when we

turn to the populous towns and cities of New England,
where the governmental forms are even more radically
democratic than in New York, we find life and property as
secure as in any other part of the world. The fact is, the
people of New England are remarkably democratic in
their dealing with crime, as they showed some years
ago, when they hung the Harvard Professor, Dr. Webster,
and as they have now again shewn in dealing with the
hitherto respectable and rigidly righteous Deacon Andrews.
By the side of Plymouth Rock right still means right,
and wrong wrong, as it did when the lowly pilgrims buts
there the first pine-wood State-house and church in one.
New England has a large society for the abolition et
capital punishment, but so long as the penalties
for crime remain on the statute-book they are carried
into effect with certainty, and without regard to persons.
It is to be hoped that the extreme to which matters have
gone in New York will lead to a reformation. Street bogs
led to street pavements. The highwaymen who occupie'd
London after dark at the close of the seventeenth century
led to the lighting of our streets. We anticipate, therefore,
that things there will go on from bad to worse, while we have
no doubt that there are enough upright and sensible men
in New York to take care that the lessons of evil shall not
be lost, and that eventually even the whiskey-ring shall
find, in a strict sense, the end of that rope of which it
would seem enough has certainly been given to it without
fulfilling the prophecy of the proverb.
The Telegraph states that eaormous mischief or signal
good may result to the Church of England from the meet-
ing held at the Freemasons'' Tavern. It is for the purpose
of considering how the ritualistic clergy should act in view
of the recent decision of the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council. According as the chiefs of the High
Church party give prudent or rash advice, so may the
Church receive new vigour or lose a host of zealous sup-
porters. The three traditional causes before the ritualists.
They may defy or evade the judgment; they may acceps
it, and make the best of their new position; or, submitting
to it under protest, they may agitate for a revision of the
Prayer Book. We may rather anticipate that, yielding
for the present to the Privy Council, they will emphati-
cally protest against the decision, and agitate for a
revision of the Prayer Book. To that policy Englishmen
could have no objection. Apart from the question
whether the ritualistic aims are wise or not, such a course
is manly, straightforward, and English. Moreover, it is
the course suggested by the divines who revised the first
Liturgy of the English Church. In the preface to the
Prayer-book those great divines use words which seem ae
if they had been written with an eye to the present
troubles, and the importance of which it woulc
be difficult to overrate. " The particular forms
of divine worship, and the rites and ceremonies
appointed to be used therein, being things in their own
nature indifferent and alterable, and so acknowledged, it
is but reasonable that upon weighty and important consi-
derations, according to the various exigency of times
and occasions, such changes and alterations should be
made therein as to those who are in places of authority
should from time to time seem either necessary or
expedient." In other words, the Prayer Book tells the
Ritualists that if they wish for a revision of the Liturgy
they must use the ordinary means to persuade the
people of England that such a change is desirable. Hence,
as Sir Robert Peel's advice was " Register ! Register !
Register !" the advice which they might fitly receive is
" Agitate ! Agitate ! Agitate !" Toelay that course is
open to the ritualistic meeting ; it may be taken or re•
jected ; but in either case the consequences may be
momentous, and, if the policy of defiance or evasion bi
adopted, the result may be at once disastrous an,'
irreparable.
The Stgr makes some observations upon a pamphlet
lust published, on the working classes, written by a
Daughter of the People. It is not wanting in ability.
but its tone is prejudicial, and the writer forgets that the
best missionary among the poor is political progress.
The Daughter of the People labours under the
disadvantage of knowing too much. A woman so
well informed may be° as prejudiced as possible
against agitators, but all her anger against them does
not prevent her leaving on her readers' minds the
impression that the agitators and the trades unions ens
often right, and that the masters and society are often
wrong. If she will think a little more deeply this Daughter
of the People will perceive that agitators of the bad sort
can only flourish where injustice and ignorance co-exist.
Bind them together for the burning—give education and
tree political institutions—and all classes will thrive and be

at peace, though no class may exhibit superhuman. Arktit
pr pelf:controj,