The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF

0 JOMINAL B.

It was always obvious, remarks the Times, that, from one
point of view, the late experiment on the case of the
Welsh fasting girl assumed a very ugly appearance. The
girl undoubtedly was starved to death, and the question
arose who was responsible for her starvation ? The ques-
tion then lay between the father and the doctors. The
father declares the doctors never told him the child
was in danger until the morning of the day she died,
and the evidence of the doctor who saw her
on Thursday afternoon confirms this statement. If
so, it is really hard to say which behaved worse.
A doctor who can consider a girl not in danger after
eight days' fast must be an extraordinary specimen of his
profession, even in Wales. It is difficult to acquit the
father of being an accomplice in the deceit, and of having
shrunk from its detection. He now stands charged with
manslaughter, and it is satisfactory that the case will thus
be fully investigateed in a court of law. But on what
grounds the coroner can have directed the jury that the
doctors were not to blame we are unable to comprehend.
The girl was for the time in their hands, and if, from
recklessness or credulity, they failed to take obvious mea-
sures of precaution, they have incurred at least
a heavy moral responsibility. But medical men,
and, above all, the authorities of a Metropolitan
Hospital, ought to have refused to treat this credulity
as a fit subject for experiment. If Welsh parents, doctors,
and clergymen are capable of such gross superstitions as
t) believe that a human being can exist without food, it
is the duty of those who are better informed to set them
a wholesome example. It was monstrous that, when a
London Hospital was applied to, the only steps taken
should have been precisely those which would naturally
aggravate the disease—in short, that metropolitain aid
should only have been granted in order to assist in cul-
pable homicide. The circumstances of the case need a
great deal more explanation, and that from various
sources.

The herald considers that the contemporaneous visita-
tion of two actual and so many passive architectural mis
fortunes under the same Government, is a thing so unpre-
cedented in any history we are acquainted with that it
forces us to the conclusion that the country is suffering
under a deficiency of superintending power of correspond-
ing magnitude. It would be a poor plea, though the
best there can bo given us, to say that the
break-up of our two modern wonders In archi-
tecture is an affair of the foundations. In modern engi-
neering we have high scientific authority for saying that,
with skill and money, everything is possible. French
science has just solved at Suez the problem that defied the
successive efforts of the Pharaohs and Ptolonaies ; and
foundations, which have been proverbially shifting and
unstable, now boar in safe transit the wealth of one hemi
sphere to the other. A Ship Canal safe in the sands of
Egypt under the aid of the French Government, and a
g, cat Embankment and a costly Viaduct thing under our
own superintendence, on the same soil that has supported
for centuries St. Paul's, and so many other heavy super-
structures, only to be giving way as soon as erected—this
is a contrast so humiliating that we may reasonably doubt
if a like indictment has stood against the authorities of
any other country.
Now that the illustrated books of the season are crowding
our tables, says the Daily News, and that attention is directed
to various styles of art, it is interesting to look back on
the productions of one of the most illustrious painters
and draughtsmen of a distant era and a foreign country.
The publication of two lives of Albert Durer—one by
Mrs. Charles Heaton, published by Messrs. Macmillan and
Co., the other by Mr. William B. Scott, from the press of
Messrs. Longman—places before the English people the
means of judging for themselves of the character of Ger-
man art in the early part of the sixteenth century. Both
books are ably and carefully executed; both include
many of Durer's own letters, besides lists of his works;
and both contain copies of some of his designs. Durer has
left us specimens of almost every description of pictorial
art; but his chief power is in the region of the fantastic.
Phantasmagoria generally need to be explained ; and it is
amusing to find Durer's admirers differing totally as to the
meaning of some of his designs, and Mrs. Heaton remark-
ing that possibly he did not quite understand them him-
self ! Still, the German art-region is one of great interest
and attractiveness ; and it has no higher name than that of
Albert Durer.

The Telegraph observes that it will be many years before
the New Law Courts are finished ; but there is a point
which should receive immediate attention. In most of
our law courts, the science of ventilation, such as it is,
has not been brought fairly into play. It is a fact that
many of the police-courts which have so bad a name are
far better ventilated than the halls in which the judges of
the land are went to administer justice. We do not say
that the problem is altogether easy of solution ; still,
much might be done in the way of pailiating
evils which cannot be cured effectually until the New
Law Courts are opened to the profession and to the public.
Limit the number of idle spectators, call into play the
resources of modern ventilation, and appoint competent
docrkeepers—we have no further temporary expedients to
suggest. It would be well, no doubt, if the Common Pleas
could be shut up altogether, and the wretched hole used
for some purpose for which it is really fitted. This,
however, will not come to pass—so groat is tho

force of habit and custom. We shall kill off
two or three more of our Judges as a matter of
dry duty, before their successors are provided
with suitable tribunals. Not only, however, do we
actually kill these most excellent and valuable men, as we
have done to a certain extent in the case of poor Mr.
Justice Hayes ; but we keep the others alive at half-
stroke. It is as though we had picked out a score of our
best philosophers, and told them to perform miracles of
intelligence in the half-exhausted receiver of a huge air-
pump. Death is bad enough, but surely diseased life is
worse. Is this fair upon the Judges ? Is it fair upon
the public ?