The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC) JOURNALS.

The Saturday Review regrets that when the reasons for
the remission of any capital sentence are made known,
they will remain, as they must do, open matters for coma
ment, criticism, and possible objection, or even proper
condemnation. Neither the Home Secretary nor the
public ought to occupy this sort of relative position. it
is unfair both ways. The carrying out of the extreme
sentence of the law ought not to be left in this accidental
and unknown state. As it is, after every solemn trial
of justice, accompanied by the most impressive details,
we are all pretty much where we started. The
accused to be sure is condemned to death ; but
whether he will be hanged, imprisoned for life,
or pardoned, depends upon a whole train of matters, con'
ducted by nobody knows who, and settled for reasons
nobody knows what. Sheward is condemned and executed;
Wiltshire is condemned and imprisoned for life ;
Smethurst is condemned and pardoned ; Constance Kent,
five years after committing murder, gives herself up t°
justice, is convicted, condemned, and not executed;
Sheward, eighteen years after committing murder, gives
himself up to justice, is convicted, condemned, and
executed. In each and all of these cases a fierce and mis-
chievous controversy arises. If Parliament happens to be
sitting, we get, as we have just got in Sheward's case, a
satisfactory explanation from the Home Secretary ; but
that explanation is, of course, open to exception and criti-
cism. If Parliament is not sitting, the newspapers take
their sides, and the public follows suit, and we hear
great deal of the caprice of the Home Office, the undue
severity or the undue leniency of the Secretary, all of
which may or may not be justifiable. But what remains
is a reasonable objection to the uncertainty of criminal
justice. It may be all right, but we have no ground&
upon which to be satisfied ; it may be all wrong, but We
can never prove it.
The Spectator says that, according to his own account of
the matter, Mr. Lowe on Tuesday night sprang a mine
upon a new Tower of Babel, which the lawyers have been
conspiring to build on the rather prosaic site of Carey'
street, Lincoln's-inn. The proceeding, however, resembled
more closely a new attempt to found a Cave—and this
time, it would seem, in the heart of the Government, not
merely in the Liberal party. Government after Govern-
ment has submitted the policy of which Mr. Lowe made
such fun on Monday night—the policy of concentrating our
Law Courts so as to introduce the highest degree of unity
and efficiency into our distracted modes of procedure—to
select committees and commissions, and notably to the
commission called Sir George Lewis's Commission, 01
which the present Lord Chancellor, Lord Hatherley, was
a most active and important member, and every report so
made has insisted on the vast importance of the policy of
which Mr. Lowe makes so light. The report of the
Judicature Commission just issued, the importance of
which, supported, as it is likely to be, by the legal
authorities on both sides of the Houses of Parliament,
cannot be exaggerated, insists on this policy of conceal's'
tion as the central point of all our legal reform ; and it
cannot, indeed, be carried out without such concentration.
The "frenzy for concentration," over which Mr. Lowe
makes so merry, has been shared by persons not less
prudent and cool than the late Sir G. C. Lewis, Lord
Hatherley, Sir J. Coleridge, and an almost indefinite
number of other Ministers and lawyers, who are not usually
supposed to be given to wild and extravagant freaks of
humour or caprice. No doubt it is contrary to all true
principles of economy to leave the execution of such a
scheme as this to irresponsible commissioners, who have
no motive for economy and efficiency, because they have
nothing to lose by extravagance and inefficiency. So fat
we go with Mr. Lowe. But we do earnestly protest
against the penny-wise and pound-foolish counsel which
proposes an irretrievable policy of insufficient accommoda-
tion on the most inconvenient sites, in the hope of saving
for the moment a sum far short of what we shall certainly
have to spend in repairing our error in future years. It
is all very well for a responsible Minister to say, "I am
responsible for this ; if I am in error you will have me to
blame, and I can pay the penalty." But by the time we
are feeling the consequences of such an error as this seems
likely to prove, Mr. Lowe will probably no longer be
Minister; before we can feel the worst consequences of his
blunder, it is scarcely possible that he can any longer be
Minister ; he will have the satisfaction of saving a million
or two sterling now, and the next generation will have
the satisfaction of paying many more millions as a fine for
his error and a penal tribute to his memory.
The Examiner and London Review, in discussing the
professional beggar, remarks that it is very hard to induce
people to abandon the cruel kindness of promiscuous aline'
giving. They will not look to the fact that the professional
beggar absorbs the money which ought to go to the really
destitute. The ordinary complaint is, "We have no
means of telling whether a beggar is an impostor or not;
and under the circumstances it is better that we should be
cheated nine times if on the tenth we gain the chance of
relieving some abject creature's misery." That is to saY,
for want of information we are compelled to spend nine
shillings in fostering deceit, that the tenth shilling may&
a work of charity. What we should like to see done
would be the spending of the nine shillings, or part of it,
in obtaining the required information, and the consequent
extermination of the professional beggar. Now the
Society for Preventing Pauperism, Mendicity, and Crime
offers an admirably simple method of achieving this desi-
rable end. The means are not expensive; they involve but
little trouble ; and they have been found thoroughly comps
tent in an experiment which has just been made, we learn,
at Blackheath. It is proposed to apply the same principle
to the metropolis, but there will obviously b 3 great difficul-
ties in the way of working the system satisfactorily in
London, for without general and concerted action it would
be comparatively valueless. But that such a system
would multiply the chances of real destitution being re-
lieved and greatly reduce the chances of successful impos-
ture, is apparent at the first glance. Among the deserving
poor there is frequently a great disinclination to make
public their poverty by seeking workhouse aid. A society
which could prudently and efficiently investigate such
cases of genuine distress as are not relieved by our present
methods of affording charity, would do a most humane
and deserving work. The system, if applied to London,
would have to be wholly decentralised, and there must be
offices in various districts, within easy reach of the majo-
rity of the inhabitants' houses. Cases of hardship and
injustice must, unquestionably, occur; for officialism,
when it comes in as the protector of philanthropy between
the charitable and the applicant for charity, invariably
assumes an attitude of suspicion, and is apt to become too
zealous and too literally exact in its demands. But these
cases would bear no proportion whatever to the alarming
injustice at present inflicted by the method in which we
dole out our private charities. It is the really deserving
poor who have no chance. It is the bold and obstinate
beggar who invariably carries the day.
The John Bull thinks that the debate in the House of
Lords on the increase of the Episcopate will, at first sight,
be very disappointing to Churchmen, and loud murmurs
will no doubt be heard against the conduct of the bishops.
No one can fail to sympathise with Lord Lyttelton. He
has devoted himself with such earnestness to bringing
about some practical measure for the increase of the EPle*
copate, and he has been so frequently unsuccessful, that
every peer and Churchman reg.] e' s to oppose him. Never-
theless, it does seem unfortunate that he should not have
communicated with the Episcopal Bench. The noble
lord may well complain that in whatever shape he brings
forward his bill, their lordships cavil at its details. But
the real lesson to he learnt from this debate
that Parliament, while admitting the necessity for
an increase in the number of our dioceses, will laot give its consent to anything but a definite
tangible scheme. Their lordships were only ones
roused to enthusiasm during the debate, and that
was when reference was made to the probability of an!
endowment being seized on by a Government which, al
Lord Westbury said the other night, talks of not breaking
the law as if it was a virtue. But we think the endow-
ment might be secured from the most sacrilegious spolia-
tors, and, therefore, if wealthy Churchmen will find the

means, a moderate increase in the number of our ale°
pastors may at once be attained. But the House of
Lords will not encourage subscription or cheap bishops.,
certainly open to the abuse pointed out by the Bishop of
Gloucester and Bristol, and the rota system is universally
condemned. The Archbishop of York hinted at a scheme
for making deans coadjutor bishops; but we warn those
proposing this scheme that, whatever its merits, it will
undoubtedly have very different and more extended results
than they imagine. Let us hope that the delay, tanta•
lising and disappointing as it is, may result in some defi-
nite and practical scheme being adopted. The questioe
cannot remain in its present position.

Tlie Emperor of Ail Aria is likely to visit Cone
stantinople during the summer.

The Ga. tt.! announces the appointment of Sir
Michael Shaw Stewart to the Lord-Licutenancy of Eev
frewshire, in the room of the late Earl of Glasgow.
MR. NEWDEG ATE AND DR. MANNING.-1110
Tablet says : " For onrselves, we are bound to say that
Mr. Newdegate always edifies us, and we have taken
pains on nis occasion to gather from authentic sources
the particulars which his modesty declined to give. It
appears that the Archbishop of Westminster really had
been in the tea-room with a friend, who, being inspired,
with mischief, said, 'There's Newdegate; shall I intro-
duce you to him?' With all my heart, if he likes it, afi,
once,' replied the Archbishop ; and his friend went ovg,
to the godly man, but soon came back laughing, saying,
It's too strong, it's too strong.' Mr. Newdegate had eacapedii
c snare of the fowler, and 'no doubt fled away, reflect.;
0!! :mother victory over gin, a victory over the p 31.4

of sin.'