The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-16 00:00:00

ME7ROPOLITAN GOSSlP—Thursday,

A week ago I wrote " I feel as certain as I am of any
future event that the Times will find itself utterly mis-
taken on the present occasion, and that Mr. Gladstone
will not accept the scheme of concurrent endowment."
To-day my prophecy is fulfilled. On Monday evening
Mr. Gladstone's letter to the Ulster Orangemen was pub-
lished, in which he declared that he would not accept con-
current endowment in any shape. That letter the editor of
the Times seems to have overlooked, for on Tuesday morning
there appeared an article rejoicing in the carrying of
Lord Stanhope's amendment, and insisting that this solu-
tion of the difficulty must and would be accepted. Not till
We dn esdaywasMr. Gladstone's letter published in th e Times.
For that day its leading columns ignored the Irish Church as
completely as though that institution had never been heard
of. This silence was a very clear indication of what was
coming ; and those who had studied the signs of the Times
were not at all surprised to find this morning that
the leading journal had thrown concurrent endow-
ment overboard, on the ground that it was " too late."
What Lord Salisbury thinks of this desertion on the very
eve of battle may be, as the penny-a-liners say, "better
imagined than described." He had fallen into the delu-
sion that the Times represented the nation ; the
Times had fallen into the delusion that it was possible
to bring about a coalition Government, with the Marquis
at its head, and the old Whigs, like the Duke of Somerset,
Lord Halifax, and the Duke of Cleveland, and the true
Liberal-Conservatives like the Duke of Richmond, the
Earl of Stanhope, and Earl Devon among its members.
Never was there a greater mistake. The whole scheme
has utterly collapsed, and now the Times contemptuously
tells the Peers that their recent vote for concurrent endow-
ment is satisfactory because it "marks a certain progress
towards equality on the part of the Lords." But now they
must go still farther. As the via media is impossible, they
must take the strait and narrow way of total disendow-
ment. They must, in a word, restore the bill to its original
shape. The Times has made many blunders in its time,
but never so serious a blunder as this. It is the more
serious, because all its contemporaries, both London and
provincial, except, of course, the Conservative organs,
have been saying all along what the Times has
not said till to-day. While the " leading" jour-
nal was declaring that the whole nation had changed
upon this point of concurrent endowment, the Independent
and the Liberal journals were maintaining that the nation
had never wavered, and that the Government would not
waver. This blunder shews that the Times has lost the
power which it once had of ascertaining the direction of
popular feeling. The truth is, the ruling class, the class
which makes public opinion, is now of a lower social
grade than formerly. Of old, the ideas of dukes
and marquises prevailed ; now it is the ideas of traders and
shopkeepers. The Times has forgotten this, and has been
still looking for its oracles in the House of Lords, and so has
fallen into the most remarkable mistake that it has ever
made.

Everybody knows now the course which Mr. Gladstone
will take. It is that which I said a week ago he would
take. The real point of interest now is, will the Lords
accept the bill which the Commons will send back to
them ? At the end of last week they, or rather the
majority of them, were determined that they would not.
But circumstances alter cases, and the circumstances of
this week are very different from those of last week.
Then the Times was counselling concurrent endow-
ment, now the Times declares that it is too late.
Then Lord Salisbury was declared to be the master
of the situation, now he is eimply one of many
peers who will have to give way gracefully, or to
yield to pressure in November. Then the nation had
not spoken except by its representatives in the Commons,
now, challenged to speak, it has spoken, and is speaking,
and the papers contain columns of reports of meetings all
over the kingdom. Nor is this all. I mentioned on a
former occasion that a leader of the trades unions had
made arrangements by which he could set those bodies in
motion at twenty-four hours' notice. To-day I read the
following advertisement in the Times:—

A RE the PEOPLE or the LORDS to RULE ?—A
.tom MEETING of WOr KING MEN to support Mr. Gladstone's
Irish Church Bill, and, if necessary, to arrange for a great demonstra-
tion, will be held at the Arundel-hall, Arundel-s•reet, Strand. THIS
(Thursday) EVENING. July 15. Chair to be taken at 8 o'clock. by
EDMOND BEALE:4, Esq., M.A. The Meeting will be addressed by
leading working men and Members of Parliament.
On behalf of the Committee,
GEORGE POTTER, Hon. Sec.
In fact, we are to have the old story of the Reform agita-
tion over again. Will the Lords, remembering what came
of resistance befcre, resist now? It is at least doubtful.
Yet, remembering that they passed the second reading of
the bill at a time when there was no agitation, there is
reason to hope that they will not reject the bill now that
agitation has begun. At the same time I am bound to
say that up to the present moment I have not had any
definite information that they will yield.
The postponement of the Government Telegraphs Bill
is causing great dissatisfaction. However, there is
every reason to believe that the Government mean, if
possible, to pass it this session. An attempt will be made
to deal with it on Monday night, by which time the Irish
Church Bill will have left the Commons. Some com-
plaint is made that the Government should at the same
time fix so high a tariff as ls., and claim a mono-
poly. I believe that Mr. Norwood, to whom
the bill in great measure owes its existence, will
propose to substitute a sixpenny for a shilling rate.
Louder and more urgent become the rumours respecting
the great scandal of the day. The utmost efforts have,
it is said, been made to suppress it, but the wronged
husband is determined to pursue the matter, let who will
be ruined in character thereby. The erring wife is now
insane, but he who is accused of having destroyed her is
still occupying his position in the State and in society. It
is a miserable subject, and may well make one anxious
about this country's future. From first to last in his
career the person whose misdeed is now the theme
of common talk has never displayed a single
quality to redeem him in the estimation of the country.
Meanness is freely attributed, together with more serious
vices. The love of play, say those who have seen it
exhibited by ,the person in question, is keen enough ; but
while he scrapes together the winnings, he never pays
when he loses.

" Another Plunger " might be almost kept standing by
your compositors as a weekly heading. The last is the
son of a nobleman who has shewn himself on more than
one occasion a statesman. The father of the plunger
is himself the son of a plunger. By strict self-denial and
thrift, and by business talents far above the average, he
had succeeded in reestablishing the position which his
father had lost. But what profit is there for a man in all
the labour that he hath under the sun ? No sooner has
the earl of to-day extricated himself from the difficulties
in which the earl of yesterday plunged him than
the earl of to-morrow rushes into the wild
courses of his grandfather, and is compelled to
leave the country and, I suppose, to vacate the seat
which he won a few months ago, after a severe contest.
Thus another of our ancient families—and this is one of
the most ancient—seems destined to go to the horses. And
then our aristocrats wonder at " the advance of de-
mocracy."
Yesterday morning saw one of those alliances between the
noble and burgher classes which will do more to keep back
democracy than any amount of senile indignation at the
Carlton and White's. The Marquis of Huntly, the premier
Marquis of Scotland, who came of age a few months ago,
was married at Westminster Abbey to the daughter of a
Manchester banker. All the world was there, including
royalty itself. Everything that could be done was done to
impress upon the young bride the hall mark of nobility.
This banker's daughter, now the premier Marchioness of
Scotland, brought a dowry to her husband which may well
conceal any defect in that way. She has had £20,000 a year
settled upon her, with the promise of as much more when
her father dies.

The vicissitudes of great families have formed the
subject of many a volume. The Ellesmere family would
contribute a good chapter. The ancestors of the young
Earl who, next week, is to entertain the Prince of Wales,
were at one time far from wealthy. But of late years the
family property has increased in value enormously. As
with the eccentric Earl of Dudley, so with the Earl of
Ellesmere, it is coal that has done it. Nearly the whole of
the latter nobleman's Lancashire property is situated
upon a thick bed of coal, and through it run twenty-eight
miles of underground canals. By means of these the
necessity for raising coal to the surface is obviated, and
it is taken to Manchester and other places without
change of carriage. The Earl of Ellesmere came of age
last year. During his minority of six years his estates
were most carefully superintended by his steward, Mr.
Tereday Smith, and his trustee, the Hon. Algernon
Egerton. The result of their management is that this
young nobleman will be almost as wealthy as the
Gros venors.
Future etymologists will, I fear, derive the word
rowdy from the Row with an unsavoury name where of
old the beau monde, but now the demi-monde, disports
itself. Early in the day Rotten Row is pleasant enough ;
but in the afternoon flock thither all the disreputable
people in London. An old frequenter tells me that the
women with carrnined cheeks who used to take their
airing in Burlington Arcade now come out farther west,
followed by a tribe of over-dressed men, who seem to
have been turned out of all warehouses and drapers'
shops in town. The old stagers are so well known
that they have received nicknames, not always of
a complimentary character. There is a curled and dyed
man whose rigid walk and cadaverous face have won for
him the appellation of " the Corpse." A stern-looking
woman who drives a pair of ponies is known as " the
Fury." Then there are three brothers, with very
sandy hair, each a little uglier than the other.
These are respectively called Battle, Murder,