The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-23 00:00:00

THE J SUN, LONDON, _ FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 23, 1569.

THT:RE is a remarkable article in the Quarterly
Review on " The Cost of Party Government." The
writer considers that we are paying far too heavy
price for this form of government; that while it has
proved invaluable as a preservative against misgo-
vernment, as an instrument of self-government it
has signally failed. It is worth while to mention his
arguments, and to point out where we think them
Found and where we believe them to be otherwise.
To begin with, the Reviewer says that the House
of Commons is not a school of statesmanship, but
only a school of oratory. "It stimulates oratory, it
enthrones oratory, it makes oratory the indispensable
condition of high office." Is this accurate ? Take
the last Government, or the present, and count how
many Cabinet Ministers there were or are orators. It
will be found that not half of them have the
smallest claim to the title. Of course they must
be able to make an intelligible statement,
must be able to answer a question relating
to their departments, or they would fail to fulfil one
of the objects for which they hold office—to be the
mouthpiece in Parliament of the departments over
which they preside. But there are not six orators
in the present Cabinet, nor were there six in the
last. The two departments whose shortcomings are
especially censured by the Reviewer—the Home
Office and the Poor-law Board—areunder the control
of men who rarely make a speech, and who are con-
tent with simply telling unvarnished tales concerning
the business in which they are concerned. The
next point of the reviewer's is, that the works
of Government is much more difficult than it was,
because we have now a large colonial empire which
males great demands upon cur attention, and there-
fore we can the 1 ,frord co Icse time in party war-
fare. The :,nswer to this is simple enough : the less

I we govern our colonies the better both for them and
for us ; our highest wisdom is to let them govern them-
, selves, so that this, at all events, is no argument
against gov( mment by party. It isiather
strnfige that the Reviewer should- ,hare selected for
his next point the-meant of a strong Government.
A Liherittifialfority of 126 ought to be strong enough
"4---Hfor a Cuarte.rly Reviewer, one would think. More-
over, as a matter of fact, do we find that all the
social questions which he would have Parliament
tal,e.up were -undertaken by PITT during his twenty
years of office, or by Lord LIVERPOOL during his
a.emin:stration of sixteen years? PITT gave us our.
present National Debt. Lmairoor, gave us the
Six Acts. PITT brought down the finances of
England to the lowest ebb. LIVERPOOL nearly
drove both England and Ireland into a revolution.
The fact is, " strong" Governments are liable to
become both despotic and apathetic. It is not the
i long-lived Administrations which undertake social
' legislation, but the short-lived Administrations, for
these have to seek strength in popular applause
and support. There is not a single Administra-
tion since the' Reform Bill, however brief,
which • has not done more in the way _of
social reform than was done by Lord LIVERPOOVEI.
Moreover, there is this to be borne in
mind, social reforms can to a considera.ble
extent be accomplished without the aid of Parlia-
ment. Emigration is one of the subjects mentioned
by the Reviewer, and we all know what is being
done in this matter by the philanthropists outside
the House of Commons. It is difficult to see what the
House could do with respect to another matter men-
tioned by the Reviewer—the improvement of the con-
dition •of the agricultural labourer. On the other
hand, the measures which the House has taken up,
and which he censures, Parliamentary Reform and
the Irish Church, are just the sort of measures
with which the Legislature ought to deal. On the
one side we had a people discontented because they
were not admitted to the franchise; on the other, a
people embittered against an alien institution. Only
Parliament could satisfy either of these, and Parlia-
ment has done or is doing both.
We admit that the Reviewer has some cause of
complaint against party government. It is to be
lamented that just as men are beginning to learn
their work they should have to give place to men
who know nothing of it. There is not the least doubt
that much of the extravagant expenditure on
our army and our navy is due to the
constant alterations in the rersonnel of the
War Office and the Admiralty. Yet even
here there are counterbalancing advantages.
These changes permit of many men becoming ac-
quainted with public affairs, so that the death of
any one of them is not an irreparable loss. More-
over there is great danger in the existence of a per-
manent head of a department. We all know that
serious complaints have been raised against under
secretaries in certain Government offices. These gentle-
men are accused of holding too much power and
exercising it too dtspotically. Surely the evil would
be aggravated if it were the Secretary of State
instead of the Under Secretary, who waspermanent.
In the protest against the supposed necessity for the
resignation of a Ministry, in case it should be encum-
bered with an incompetent or an erring colleague,
we thoroughly agree. But we are by no means
certain that any such necessity exists. Lord
DEttnY, did not go out in,
,1853,
,but let
Lord ELLE-spoitorGir resign instead.• Lord
PALMI:IISToN was deprived of Mr. Lows,
Mr. . .STAgSF.ELD, And Lord WESTBIIRY, but
continued - Premier until his death. Altogether,
While we hope that Parliament hereafter will be
able to-devote its chief energies to social legislation,
we do not think that party go'iernment, whatever
its defects, has seriously interfered with such legisla-
tion hitherto.

up, with the utmost conceivable difficulty, under tie
guise now of one amendment, now of another. I
settles down again, at the close of each successivt
endeavour, always at the same dead-level--always
bracketed,, as though it were a mlestone, 113, as On
case may be, or 93, or 115. In another sense, too.
'coking at these accumulating amendments they art
mil'stoncs rather than milestones—millstones weigh-
ing the Opposition down, in proportion to their mul-
tiplying dQfeats, deeper and deeper, in the ver'
Slough of Despond. Seri )uily—again, one is really
fain to inquire—What the Opposition propose tc
themselves in heaping iipon themselves defeat upon
defeat, and each defeat, in turn, not a partial defeat,
but one complete and overwhelming. They are act-
ing conscientiously we -are firmly convinced. But
to what end? Is it to end that they may demonstrate,
more and more clearly, day after day, that their case
is hopeless, that there is no chance wha`ever of their
gaining a single step in advance upon any one single
amendment ? As if that were still a matter in any
way requiring further demonstration ! Long since,
that fact is perfectly well known and thoroughly well
appreciated, and that, too, let us say, quite equally
upon both sides of the House, not one jot more dis-
tinctly upon thesideof the Government than upon the
side of the Opposition. Realizing the truth that itiaso,
as the house notoriously does, it is almost by a sort
of wilful perversity that it insists, in its character, as
a Committee on the Irish Church Bill, upon going
quite bootlessly and fruitlessly the same weary
round, like a squirrel in a cage, with a metallic click
at each revolution, registering as its result, now 113,
say, now 115, and so forth, upon a long succession of
Clauses, upon a protracted and, one is almost pre-
pared to call it, an interminable series of Amend-
ments. The longest lane—even down in Devonshire
—has its turning : and, therefore, come to an end of
this weary and idle work of the House of Commons
in Committee on the Irish Church Bill we shall, of
course, eventually. All the same, the mere thought
of it, is a heart-sore ; and very earnestly, indeed,
must every one, even the most conscientious oppo-
nents of the Government measure as a whole, long
for the time when labours of such undeniable futility
shall, in the natural course of things, come at last to
a termination.

cOARESPONDENCE" PROM RAIL

( FROM inirlrlYlVN ebitriESPurrynr) •
PARIS, THURSDAY, April 22.
Two hundred electors met at Marseilles, the other day,
and resolved, in a very flattering letter, to offer the can-
didature of the port to M. de Lesseps, the constructor of
the Suez Canal. The papers which sustain the
candidature of this very able representative of commerce
put him forward as a thoroughly independent candi-
date. He has been before spoken of, hut refused,
on the ground that his great enterprise was
too absorbing to permit hint to give due atten-
tion to the interests of his constituents. But the
Emperor sent him a pressing 'despatch, written by General
Fleury, and so M. de Lesseps consented. But though
thus directly supported by the Emperor, he will rest his
claims on commercial grounds; and everybody will bo glad
to. see him in the Corps Ltgislatif. Gambetta, the young
Democratic adveicate, will oppose him.
The "Letter to an Elector," which it was hoped would
gain over so many votes tp the Government, has just been
fullotved up byanother publication of the kind, "Progress
of France under-the Empire." The title of this publica-
tion explains its object. It has just appeared.
The fraud by the cashier of the I7nion Insurance Com-
pany is likely to develop into a pretty story when the
whole of the facts are known. M. Pic, tbe manager of
the Etendard, is, as I have said, in custody, for having
received half of the money appropriated by the cashier,
and applying that half to the support of the semi-official
paper. A paragraph in the Etendard says that M. Pic
did indeed receive the money, but " didn't know that it
was stolen." Now there is clearly much in the background
here. Not only has all this money been appropriated to
keep the Etendard afloat, but the paper has undoubtedly
received, as a semi-official journal, subventions from the
Government. It is equally little in doubt that the pro-
prietors were not averse to certain "tips" furnished by
contractors of ptiblic Works who hOped to gain an indirect
recompense. But, in spite of all this " alimentation," the
Etendard was unable to pay its staff. Its writers were not
seldom obliged to have recourse to a law-court in order to
get their salaries. Certainly, the semi-official print, like all
others of its race, was- by no means a lively commercial
speculation ; Lut surely things ought not to have been so
bad. We shall soon -see, doubtless. These numerous
frauds by cashiers hive led a wag to propoSe a company
of insurance against the defalcations of these gentlemen.
But there is a difficulty in the w.iy— the insurance com-
pany must contrive to do without a cashier, or the remedy
may be as bad as the grievance. It is reported that the
Etendard will disappear, and that the France will reign
in its stead, and receive the Government advertisements.
Some time ago M. Pic founded a bank, and it is believed
that he may have used some of the money advanced by
the cashier to support his financial operations.
The Emperor has clearly set his heart upon a tunnel, or
a bridge, across the Straits of Dover. The official papers
are constantly reminding us of the scheme. A model
of a bridge has just been constructed. This is composed
of a single arch, reduced upon an exact scale to the hun-
dreth part of. the size of one of those of the- great
bridge. It -presents an absolute rigidity through-
cut, that is to say, it is not subject to any
movement or or, illation ; there is, consequently, no
vibration calculated to disintegrate the metal. There is no
more elasticity perceptible under foot than in walking on
a pavement, and it can support without any deflection a
weight greater than twenty trains, proportioned to the
same scale, meeting in the 'middle of the arch. The weight
of ten men does not produce a deflection of.more than a few
millimetres in its whole length, and as soon as it is relieved
of its burden it recovers exactly its first position—indeed,
it was not necessary to employ several of the parts prepared to
ensure rigidity. The deduction from this interesting
experiment is that bridges of any length may be built
from bank to bank in a single arch. Orders have already
been given for several bridges of this dcscriptioa to be con-
structed in different parts of the country.. A second
model, double the size of the first, is now being con-
structed.

The oratorstnen and women—of the public meetings
must be going mad. Madame Minck has already been in
difficulties, and dUring "the last few days she has received
two warnings from the Commissary of Police.- At
La Redoubte the discussion: was . on ,House-rent, and
Madame Minck vaguely assured her hearers
that society • was sleeping on a volcano. " This
aphorism." says the Union, "may be interpreted in many
ways ; but what appears to us less elastic is the motion
made by the speaker who preceded -the lady in the
tribune ; he simply demanded that all house-owners
should be guillotined !" Some of the proceedings at
these meetings do not, however, reflect any great credit ( n
the Government. A M. Ruther, for instance, has been sen-
tenced to two montll3' imprisonment and a fine of L'2),
not for unlawful speechifyit;, but- because he vio-
lated d formality prescribed by the law. The
point is rather curious. The.law will not permit a bank-
rupt ty sign the declaration necessary to the convening of
a public meeting. - 111. IZuffier vas one of -the-proprietors

. .
of a comnrmy which had i•..... b‘,.fficrupt, but r.s
the bankr,,i,cy Was not personal; it was a questionwhetin r
the law on public meetings applied to such a case. The
tribunal decided that it did ; but evidently the penalty is

MURDER AT GREENOCK.

The first cricket match ever played in Constan-
tinople has come off betwecli Eleven of the Constantinople
Cricket Club and as many officers and crew of H.M.S.
Ariadue. The game ended in the triumph of the Turks.
Mr. Gold win Smith, after a short absence from
the Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, has returned,
and is now busily engaged on his work so long an-
nounced, "A Short History of England Down to the
Reformation."

DEATH OF A NEPHEW OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.
—William Scott, the nephew of Sir Walter Scott, who
has been for some time a sick inmate of the St. Andrew's
Home in Montreal, died in that institution on the 9th
instant, from cancer in the stomach. He was 64 years of
age.

MR. CEARLES DICEENS.—Mr. Charles Dickens,
who was to have given a reading at Preston on Thursday
night, was taken suddenly unwell. Ifis medical atten-
dant, who was summoned from London, has certified that
the state of Mr. Dickens's health, by reason of excessive
travelling and fatigue, was such as to render it impossible
for him to fulfil his engagement.

A CANDID SPINSTER.--Miss Dalyrmple, sister
of Lord llailes, was a dwarfish and deformed figure, while
amiable and judicious above the average of her sex.
Taking into view her beautiful pace of residence and hex
large wealth, she remarked to a friend one day, " I can
say for the honour of man, that I never got an offer hi ray,
life."— Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh:
DEATH FROM BEE STINGS.--Mr. D. Thompson,
of Launceston, relates, in the British M a
Medical Journal,
case of death from bee-sting, occurring within little More
than a quarter of an hour after the sting had been inflicted.
He adds the account of two other cases of a similar kind,
not before published, of which the particulars have been
'furnished to him ; and refers to two other cases in this
country, published in 1860. Such accidents are extremely
rare, and very few have ever been recorded.

At the Clerkenwell Police Court on T.,uraday Mr.
Julia Condon, a sal swan in the Metropolitan Cattle Mar-
ket, was fined 58. and costs, or in default fivo days' im-
prisonment, for exposing sheared sheep for sale at so early
a part of the ycar, and in the wet and cord. The prosecu-
tion was instituted by the Royal Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals.

A trapeze performer, named Trevanian, had a
narrow escape at Cheltenham, on M ondarrirt,t.
.110 wag
going through a performance cane! the Leap for Life," in
company with his brother, when, intend of being caught
midway, he fell into the arena below. The excitement
among the Epect :tors was intense, but fortunately his in-
juries were not of a dangerous character.

the marriage of Lady Aguea Courtenay, daughter
of tiro Earl of Devon, with the Hop. C. L. Wood, eldest son
of Viscount Halrfax, was solemnised on Thursday at St.
Paul's Church, Knightsbridge. • TIE .re was a large assembly
cf friends. The service was performed by the Lis pcf
Oxford, as,istrd 1 y Canon Courtermy arid the Hon.:llA Eev.
R. Thu Earl of Devon gave a grand del,tmer aitor

11. e ct rc rnony. The ban y pair leave tu. Cay for the seat
of Lord Henry Scott, near SoutLarnplon, en route for the
Continent.

SENTI3I.:NT, AND FACT.—It i 3 Said that when
Lord Pyron sent to his wife the weil•known touching
lines—

" Fare thee well ! And, if for ever,
Still, for ever fare thee well !"
he enclosed in the same envelope a butcher's bill, with the
Pencilled remark, " Please look over this ; I don't think
we had so much meat." The conjunction of ideas was
truly affecting, and we commend the anecdote (told by a
lady to. whom Lady Byron handed both documents to
read) to the careful consideration of those romantic minds
who think of the English Manfred as a sublime being,
whose "soul was like a star, and dwelt apart," far above
sublunary cares--not to speak of butchers' bills.
TIIF CONVENT CASE AND TUE 1111511 ROMAN
CATHOLICS.—III accordance with an announcemen'
previously made throughout the diocese of Meath, a
collection took place at the chapels on Sunday last, for the
purpose of defraying the legal expenses incurred by the
defendants in the late extraordinary trial, and which were
set down at £5,000. Many—almost all the con-
tributors—subscribed on the express understand-
ing' that none of the funds were to be :devoted
towards paying plaintiff's costs, but for the express pur-
pose of re-establishing the Sisters -of Mercy in the Hull
Convent. There was one parish of the diocese where no
collection took place—that of St. Mary's, Drogheda—the
parish priest of which is the Rev. Thomas Mathews, who
is uncle of Miss Saurin, and under whose advice the
action was pressed from the outset. The collection is said
to have realised the anticipations of the projectors; and
it is now sought to make a general appeal for the same
object to the Roman Catholics of the other diocesesin the
country.

CREOSOTE AS FuiL.—With reference to the use
of creosote as fuel, a correspondent writes to the Daily
News, in which the account originally appeared. "I have
nothing whatever to say against the-heating properties of
creosote, or the way in which the use of it puts money into
the pocket of Mr. John Schwartz, sugar-refiner, of
Pelham-street, Spitalfields, or, rather, Mile-end New
Town ; but this I-do say, that lam 0116 of some hundreds
of poor wifortunates living in the immediate vicinity
of the refinery, and that the unbearable stench caused
by its use is producing sickness all around, necessitating
the interference of the InspectOr of Nuisances and the
Board, f Works. My own family is repeatedly suffering
from it. As there is no accounting for particular taste,
some may like it, but surely it will on'y be those whose
purses get heavier by its use, and who live away from the
neighbourhood where it is used. The inhabitants of Mile-
end New Town hope that the Board of Works will be
successful in the prosecution now pending for the suppres-
sion of the nuisance."

.4
AN IMPORTANT DECISION.—The Chester magis-
trates have just decided(elgathatetedt
aon
another.iTnporta ntApacerer
certain
function may not be delegated
master pipemaker in that quaint old city is blessed with
an apprentice, unruly to a degree even in these times of
nnivrsal license. This lad recently absented himself from
work for an entire week, and his mother, on taking him
back, requested the master to thrash her son, as
ho was wholly beyond her management. In the
innocence of hii heart the master complied with
the unique r(q-e t, inv(st:ng a penny in the pur•
chase of a cane to give point t 9 his admonitions.
It is not alleged that the master used unnecessary violence
n inTeting the punishment. lie was, however, guilty of
the offence of taking the law into his own baaois, an d this
was an enormity which the law, at any rate, was not
likely to overlouk. 'llka magistrates agreel that the
offender deserved, we will not say chastisement, but
pecuniary punishment. It was shown that he was a
• kind and not a cruel Toaster, that he frequently treated
his apprentice better than he deserved, and that
in this instance he had simply flogged the fad at
his mother's express solicitation. But the mat,ter
had dared to usurp magisterial functions, and he was lined
10s, and costs for his presumption, The next time this
unruly apprentice is guilty of misconduct, Ills master, if
he be possessed of anything like a sense of grim humour,
will take him before these fauna Chester maglatrate4, and
then, in lieu of a thrashing with a penny cane, the lad will
probably be sent to prison fur a week. lint then, in ON
extremely probable event, the Chester magistrates them.
selves will have had a hand in the pie, and this mud In'
admitted to make a conakierable-difforenee.

At the Glasgow Spring Circuit Court, James Guilin,
or Gillan, was charged with the murder of Police
Inspector WlCinnon, of the Greenock constabulary in
that town, on the Ist of January last. The prisoner
was also charged with stabbing a joiner, named John
Thomson, who attempted to apprehend him after stabbing
the inspector. The prisoner pleaded Not Guilty to both
charges, and the case went to trial. From the evi-
dence adduced it appears that on the night in
question Gillan 'went into the shop of Mr.
Simpson, a confectioner in Hamilton-street, to ask for
drink, and on being told that no drink was sold there,
but that he would get what he wanted in a neighbour.
ing public-house, he attempted to go inside the counter,
and then struck Mr. Simpson a blow which broke two of
his teeth. 'Thomson then interfered, and seized Gillan,
till a policeman could be sent for, and in the encounter
was once or twice stabbed by the prisoner. On the arrival
of the constable, Galan was quietly asked to go to the
office, but, instead of obeying, he struck Inspector M`Kin-
non a full blow with Lis knife behind the ear, and then ran
off along the street. The unfortunate inspector had only
time to cry, " Catch that man ; I'm done for," when he stag-
gered, and was carried into the nearest shop, where he died
in a few minutes. Gillan was captured a short distance off
by Thomson, who was again stabbed in the scuffle. Evi-
dence washed for the defence, which bore that theprisoneron
the day when the murder was committed was considerably
the worse for liquor. The Lord Justice Clerk Lavin g Inimm ed
up the evidence, the jury retired, and, after an absence of
twenty-five minutes, brought in a divided verdict, six find-
ing the prisoner guilty of murder, eight of culpable homicide,
and one of "murder without premeditation." The prisoner
was sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude. At the
same time Neil. Lingstone was charged with the murder
of an engineer named 31‘1Vlutrie in Greenock, on the 20th
of March last. The prisoner pleaded guilty to assault and
robbery, and as the circumstance of the case showed that the
prisoner had no thought of murder the plea was accepted,
and he was sentenced to five years' penal servitude. On the
previous day, before the same judge, a man named
Shaw was sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude for
killing a woman during a drunken brawl in the Callow-
gate, Glasgow.