The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Mr. Grenville Murray may yet, for aught we know,
'pays the Times, be able to prove to the satisfaction of a
British jury that he is one of the most innocent and deeply
injured of men, but, if so, appearances are certainly so
kar cruelly against him. If we are to believe his story, or,
indeed, one-half of it, it would be difficult to find a more
painfully striking specimen of that not unfamiliar class of
modern martyrs whom all creation is in a conspiracy to
crush. Whether we are to discover Mr. Grenville Mur-
ray's greatness by Lis loss remains to be seen. If he be
innocent of the charge brought against him, it is still in
his power to come over to England and establish his inno-
cence. At present he has, either through ill-luck or mis-
management, put himself unmistakably in the wrong, and
made appearances look most suspiciously against him.
The verdict of the Conservative Club is valuable as
a plain, practical embodiment of public opinion
en this point. It puts in the clearest light the
fact that a man who connects himself with scur-
rilous journalism must not expect to be considered a
fit companion for gentlemen. The two things are incom-
patible, and he must take his choice between them. Mr.
Grenville Murray stated—and the statement is perhaps
true—that the paper which he has been accused of editing
has hitherto numbered among its contributors various
members of the London Clubs. There is no conduct so
low that some mcn even of social position will not steer
to it for the gratification of private pique, and nothing in
these days affords so easy a vent for this gratification as a
journal which trades upon personalities. For this reason
we believe Mr. Grenville Murray's statement, but we
rather doubt whether henceforth any " members of
London Clubs"—assuming this to mean respectable
Clubs—will consider it safe to employ the paper referred
to as a meanz of venting their personal animosities ; and
,we have no Moubt at all that, if they do employ it, they
will take good care to conceal the fact.

The Standard declares that the proceedings at Marl-
•borough-street on Thursday ended in a fiasco. Distin-
guished visitors crowded the court, and the unprivileged
public waited long and patiently outside for the hour
,when they should be gratified by the appearance of Mr.
Grenville Murray and his adversary, Lord Carington.
Expectation stood on tip-toe when the last-remanded case
was disposed of, and the cause calibre of the day
was called on. The curious and the critical
were there, each class hoping to hear something
fresh about the relations of the Roving Englishman
to the Queen's Messenger. But they waited in vain. As
if with a professional prevision of what was likely
to happen, Mr. Giffard, the leading counsel for
the prosecution, had stopped away ; but still the drama,
though shorn of some of its attractions for the audience,
might have gone on in his absence. The learned gentle-
man, however, was not the only absentee. Mr. Grenville
Murray also had stopped away, and so had brought the
pi-oceedings to a dead lock. Magistrates, counsel, attor-
neys, and witnesses could do nothing until the defendant
made his appearance. It was like playing " Hamlet"
without the Prince. For that day, at least, no progress
could be made beyond calling Mr. Murray upon his own
recognisances, ordering those of his bail to be estreated,
and issuing a warrant for his apprehension. Mr. Knox at
once directed these steps to be taken, and so for the
present the matter stands over.
The Post says that forty years ago, under circumstances
and conditions which are described and defined with happy
familiarity in one of the best of Mr. Disraeli's brilliant
novels, Parliament thought fit to interfere with the
management of certain trades, for the purpose of prohibit.
ing the payment of wages in goods or otherwise than in
the current coin of the realm. This measure of paternal
legislation may have served to relieve the national con-
science, which was burdened with a sense of the wrong-
doing that prevailed in and about the mills and the pits of
the manufacturing and mining districts; but, practically,
the " tommy shops " were converted into stores, and the
evils of the truck system went on their way rejoicing.
There is, in fact, as near an approach to the pro-
hibited system as the employers can with impunity
,adopt, and the scheme hinges entirely on the
inability of the men to work to the pay-day without an
advance. Wages are paid in cash, as the law provides
that they shall be, but with the understanding, which is
really compulsory, that the cash taken at the pay-office
will be paid back at the store. The Truck Act is clearly
worthless. It may not have done more harm than good,
but it has bound nobody, and it has had a long trial. If
it cannot be amended so as to meet the obvious require.
ments, the sooner it is repealed the better. But imme-
diately, and as regards the evasion of the law, it is for the
workmen to estimate the pecuniary loss they sustain in
accepting conditional advances on their wages, and if they
do that, and are disposed to help themselves—we do not
say by strikes, but by firmly demanding a contract con-
sisting with their means—this system of extortion cannot
possibly be upheld for the petty aggrandisement of
masters who, we are told, count their fortunes by tens of
thousands, and are in the enjoyment of magisterial and
legislative honours.

The Telegraph remarks that it was almost a matter of
course that the Peers would read the Contagious Diseases
(Animals) Bill a second time ; and it passed through the
second stage without being subjected to more than a few
words of hostile comment. In committee on the bill the
Peers will no doubt manifest an equal economy of words
and permit the measure to become law without delay; for
everybody is alive to the national calamities which may
.be caused by the importation of infected cattle. The
experience of the rinderpest is fresh on the public
mind ; and unless we adhere to the means of precau-
tion prescribed by the bill, it is vain to hope
that the country can escape a second acquain•
tance with the fell scourge. It is not usual fa
a bishop to take part in debates on such subjects as
the best method for keeping the cattle plague out of the
kingdom ; but the Bishop of Gloucester had good reason
for interposing on Thursday night. The transit of cattle
by railway is the occasion of shocking inhumanity to the
helpless brutes, which are often " cribbed, cabined, and
confined" during long journeys, without being allowed to
taste water from the time at which they enter the trucks
to the time at which they reach the metropolis. At
length the cruelty of the practice has attracted public
`attention ; and, by the bill which the Peers read a
second time on Thursday night, it is made a punishable
offence to keep cattle without water for more than a cer-
tain number of hours while they are undergoing the
horrors of the middle passage to the market place—
horrors inseparable from a journey in a railway truck.
We had a right to expect that some bishop should protest
against the present practice ; and on Thursday night Dr.
Ellicot performed his duty by an emphatic appeal for
mercy to the helpless.

The Herald refers to the question of capital punish-
ment, and observes that the truth may or may not be that
life-long penal servitude is more dreadful than death. But
it is certain that very few so regard it, and that those who
would rather be hanged than imprisoned for life are not
the people who commit murders. And it would be im•
,possible to persuade murderers that they would be kept in
penal servitude for life. First, it would be nearly imprac
,ticable so to keep them. A man who has really no -hope
,of release becomes desperate and unmanageable, and no
warder can restrain him. Moreover, once sentenced to A
hopeless imprisonment, what is to prevent the prisoner
from murdering his warder ? You cannot increase hie
punishment in this life ; and you will not hang him.
Consequently his gaolers are at his mercy. And also it
'.would be very difficult for a Home Secretary to resist the
'pressure that would be brought to bear on him to release
a man whose crime was forgotten, while the length of his
punishment and his real or affected repentance had moved
universal compassion. If you are really to punish a man
'with a severity as terrible as death you must do it while
the memory of his offence is fresh ; and that can only be
done by death, torture and mutilation Leing happily out
of the question. Secondly, even if you could keep mur-
derers in lifelong servitude, you could not persuade the
public that you really woulddo so. The criminal
would always hope that if he were convicted and
sentenced he would be at some time or other released.
-Lastly, you would give rise to a new class of offences,
which it would he very difficult to punish. The injured
parties would often be dissatisfied with the retribution of
the law, and would prefer to take vengeance into their
own hands ; and in atrocious cases popular sympathy
woul'?, be with them. For the careful trial and regular
execution of the present law yei would run tl:e risk of
substituting the wild justice of revenge, and the rough
rand ready procedure of Judge Lynch. All the really
strong arguments of Mr. Gilpin and his friends would be
done away by a change in the law which should render
the retrial at present conducted by the Home Office either
`unnecessary or regular and formal, and which should
ensure that sentence of death should be passed only where
it is meant to be executed, and executed whenever it
vaned.

The Daily New 3 says that the select committee wide!,
has beeninquiring into our present modes of conductin,'
parliamentary and municipal elections has postponed its
full report till next session. Its present report is com
prised in a siogle sentence, and the ouly recclumendatiou
it contains is that the committee "be reappointed next
session, for the purpose only of considering their report
with a view to early legislation." It is clearly almost
agreed by the committee that the evidence has further
shewn that nothing will cure either bribery or intimida
tiou but the Ballot. Voting papers would diminish the
risk of riot on the election day, but would, as the draft
report says, give facilities for bribery, for fraud, and
for certain forms of intimidation. The abolition
of public nominations, the prohibition of the em
ployment of paid canvassers, the closing of public.
houses •on the election days, and the multiplication
of polling-places, have all been urged on the eommitte,
and would all tend to the tranquillity and purity of the
elections. But nothing but secret voting can really
guarantee their freedom; and secret voting has everywhere
done this. In short, the result of the whole deliberations
must be a report in favour-of the T3allot. When one os
two Qenservative members who propose resolutions admi'
that the evidence submitted has been in favour of th
114410 t, and either feebly deprecate it, or declare that th 6
eNperionee of other nations is no guide to us ;, when Mr.
Ward Hunt merely suggests a compromise with it, and
the Mariut4 of ifartington agrees with Mr. I.lr;glit it
reounimeeding It, the conclusion is irreeistibla that the
one thing needful for the restoration of our electorto
PYstem to health and purity and vigour is to give the votv
that shield of secrecy which has proved effectual against
bureaucratic, despotism and tiemooratio violence, and
which wiliceurove equAlly effectual in Znglaucl aplust
lifitilsia -two AlittmoloinvizAllo -