The Sun.
London, England, 1856-02-18 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING. FEBRUARY 18, 1856

from being restored on the too easy terms tendered
for his acceptance. The criminal ambition and
grasping cupidity of Russia has occasioned all the
mischief, and Lord CLARENDON must speak the
truth boldly, and not strive to excuse the Levia-
than offender.

In reference to the Conferences at Vienna he
displayed great ability and determination. He
carefully avoided the trap into which Lord JOHN
RvssELL was so easily beguiled, and allowed that
he was fully aware of the extent of Austrian du-
plicity and insincerity when he declared to Count
COLLOREDO that there was " much reason to fear
that Austria would propose nothing that Russia
would be unwilling to accept ; while, on the other
hand, it seemed probable that Russia would agree
to nothing that would interfere with the determi-
nation that the Emperor ALEXANDER announced
of carrying out the policy of PETER, and of CATHE-
RINE." This is the spirit in which he should
enter on the negotiations. He must be well ac-
quainted with the humiliating estimate, too justly
formed, of British diplomacy. He must re-
member how often England has lost by the
pen what she had previously gained by the sword,
and firmly resolve that neither her honour nor
her interests shall suffer in his hands. Should
he fail, great indeed will be his fall; but, if on, the
contrary, he pass unscathed through the ordeal,
his name will be hcnoured and reverenced through-
out the length and breadth of the land, and no
reward will be too high for one who has faithfully
and efficiently discharged his duty in so trying an
emergency.

The benevolent Earl of SHAFTESBURY continues
to sustain, by his philanthropic labours, the repu-
tation won by him as Lord ASHLEY, when he first
assumed for himself a conspicuous place among
the most earnest and practical of the social re-
formers of our generation. It can very seldom
have happened, we conjecture, that this large-
hearted well-wishes of the humbler classes ever
experienced more complete satisfaction, while
watching the development of the humane enter-
prises fostered under his patronage, and aided
materially by his own personal encouragement—
than that which must assuredly have consoled him
for many disappointments on Thursday evening,
the 7th of this present February. Upon the
occasion, we mean of his distribution of
medals of recompencs to the more deserv-
ing boys in the Red, Blue, and Yellow
Societies of Shoeblacks. The incident of this
public distribution of rewards took place, as many
of our readers may have remarked through our
impression of last Saturday, in the ample space
afforded for such demonstrations by St. Martin's
Hall, Long-acre. The poor little fellows collected
together, either to witness the reward of merit or
to participate in it themselves directly, number-
ing no less than 150 altogether—clad in the red,
or blue, or yellow tunics distinguishing the three
brigades of the London Sheeblacks. These
urchins, it will have been °marked, were ad-
dressed, in the first instance, in a practical
and humorous speech (" which greatly
pleased the boys," says the reporter), by one
no less venerable in his official capacity
and in his personal character than the Vice-
Chancellor, Sir W. PAGE WOOD : the Vice-Chan-
cellor being immediately followed by the Rev.
W. W. OHA MPNEYS, who, in the course of his
remarks, interested his juvenile auditors with a
number of curious anecdotes illustrative of the ad-
vantages accruing from honesty and general good
behaviour. Shortly afterwards came the distri-
bution of the medals by the hand of the Earl uf
SHAFTESRUBY—when a variety of rather remark-
able particulars, as it appears to us, fell from
the lips of Mr. FOWLER, the active and intelli-
gent treasurer of the association. Particulars, for
example, to the effect that the earnings of the
red brigade alone (the oldest of the three societies)
amounted, through the industry of the 54 boys
comprised in it, to no less, actually during the
course of a single year (1855) than 1,5001. ster-
ling ! A. total of lfifteen hundred pounds gained
in the form of halfpence at street corners by the
little red-coated ehoeblacks familiar to the London
foot passengers. At the first blush this really ap-
pears to be scarcely credible. Yet there are the
actual statistics of the society, and better still
there have been counted out in a single year
those 1,5001. earned by the fifty-four boys
as proof positive and substantial ! As ad-
ditional testimony of the important working
of the system we are informed, moreover, that
the first of the three boys of the red brigade who
were rewarded with medals on Thursday evening,
the 7th of February, 1856, earned during the
past twelve months as much as 411.—having, out
of this 4114 paid 91. for his sister's outfit to Ame-
rica, 31. for his own clothes, 101. to his mother,
and 101. to the society's funds--leaving a surplus
over for himself of 15/., now snugly laid by in the
savings' bank, and there " tied up " with such an
intimate approach to tightness as must have satin.
fled even the mind of Boa, the benesssians
Turnkey of the Marshalsea ! On do average
it appears, indeed, that these Kor children are
able, easily, to earn from labs. to 15s. a-week ;
one of the boys of the yellow brigade, in fact,
having been found 'co brush himself comfortably
into the posse'ision of 14/. ifi the course of just
six month a• And let it be remembered who these
little fellows are, where they come from, and all
al-sout it ! Originally many of them are from the
very offacourings of the streets and byways. Creatures
spawned, as it were, in the gutter, and swarming
about our city lanes, and suburban back-slums, and
closes, and wynds, and rookeries! Snatched from
the contagion of the streets into the shelter of the
humble but glorious Ragged Schools, and then
when kernpt, and cleaned, and respectably dressed,
turned out to earn their living honestly, as we see
now they are really able to do, to their own com-
fort and satisfaction, as Shoeblacks. What they
were—CHARLES DICKENS has described in the
person of poor Jo in "Bleak House"—DouoLAs
JERROLD has sketched, in the little rapscallion
Jingo of "St. Giles and St. James"—Runwert
LYTTON has pencilled in the form of the miserable
Beck of " Lucretia." Thanks be to Goo they
are no longer abandoned to rags, and vermin, and
despair ! Being, on the contrary, transformed,
through the generous intervention of •es noble
band of social reformerst
industrious
members of the communit•:i—the three brigades
of our London Shoebl
cast -supplying recruits, every
now and then, to ;noEngland;no armies and navies of Old
Tslour boys," said the Treasurer of the
Ass";:ation on Thursday, the 7th instant, "left
'iast week as sailors for the Black Sea fleet, and very
many are now in the army and navy, and in re-
spectable situations, who were homeless and desti-
tute until rescued by the Shoeblack Societies."
Honour to the promoters to those Societies
say we, and GOD prosper them ! Instead
of remarking with the benevolent, but
mistaken Mr. CAPSTICK, " There,
go and cry
muffins, and be happy I"
The philanthropic
on ins,
ofon the rod, and blue, and yellow
brigades' have, to more purpose,
protegees with a armed their
wooden stool, and a bottle of
blacking, and a couple of brush es. The project,
strangely enough, is but the :revival of an old
custom long since fallen into dessuetude—a:oustona

familiar, at least in book-memory, to all the more
attentive readers of CHARLES KNIGHT'S "London."
The old London street-cry of " Clean your
honour's shoes!" being revived in the "Clean your
boots, sir," of the little red-coated, blue-coated,
yellow-coated shoeblacks (as they are still called)
of the Shooblack Association. The sedan chair-
man, and the linkboy, and the Old Charley, are
all beings of the past ; but the shoeblack is re-
vived--and, please GOD, to the cleansing not only
of boot-leather, but ultimately, in some par-
tial degree at least, of many of the darker and
more dismal of the London sinks of wretchedness !

The result of the debate on Thursday evening
in the House of Lords, on the presentation of
petitions by the Earl of ELLENBoRouarr from cer-
tain seamen of the ports of Newcastle, Aberdeen,
Hartlepool, and Sunderland, complaining of their
being obliged to go to sea in unseaworthy vessels,
we cannot but regard as extremely unsatisfactory.
The petitioners allege that the number of casu-
alties at sea has of late increased in a proportion
beyond that of the increase in our shipping ; and
though the papers just produced from the Board
of Trade show that there has been a material
diminution during the last year in the number of
lives lost at sea, it would appear to be not the less
certain that during the last three years there has
been a progressive increase in the number of ves-
sels wrecked or seriously damaged at sea ; so that
the diminution in question cannot be depended
on,• but may largely be attributed to good luck.
In the year 1852, we are told, the number of
vessels wrecked at sea was 1,015 ; yet though
that year was one of extraordinary gales, the
number of wrecks in the year following amounted
to 832, in 1854 to 987, and in 1855 rose to
1,151 ! A startling increase truly ! During
the last year the number of_collisions of ships at
sea, it would appear, amounted to 247, the result
of which in 55 cases was the vessels wore entirely
lost. It would indeed require an extraordinary
degree of faith to believe that of these untoward
events a large proportion was not preventible;
and when we find our gallant seamen attribut-
ing the greater portion of them to the incom-
petency of masters, and the unde-rmanning and
unseaworthiness of vessels, it certainly looks as if
their allegations were but too well grounded on
facts.

If this be the case, they must be regarded
as baying been hardly dealt with in being
compelled to fulfil an engagement or go to prison
for some quarter of a year, though they hall made
the discovery that the vessel was unseaworthy,
and they could only sail in her at the peril of
. .
their lives. The recent interpretation of the law
may, to be sure, be said to have improved
matters, a seaman not being now liable to
be punished for desertion as he was before for
going on shore to complain to a magistrate, but
the burden of proof still rests on him, and it is
a mere mockery to assert that he is sufficiently
protected and has no reasonable ground for com-
plaint. It is about as bad as it would have been
in former times to bid a combatant protect him-
self with scale armour who had never a shilling
in his pocket and no credit. How is the sea-
man to do it? What chance has poor Jack in
contending with a wealthy and unscrupulous
owner and a brutal devil•may-care or lickspittle
master 7 Nothing short of all hands being seen
at the pumps before making salt water will serve
his turn or enable him to demonstrate the justice
of his complaint. What is wanted for his pro-
tection is, as we suggestel in The Sun, a few
months back, and as Lord ELLENBOROUGH urges,
the appointment of a trustworthy Government
inspector, at least at the more frequented ports,
to survey the different vessels before they put to
sea.
.At present, it would appear, the Board of
Trade has power to appoint such inspectors when
they may deem it desirable, and we cannot but
think that the President of that Board. would
have better disci' irgecl his duty had he given
promise of such inspection being henceforth in-
sisted on. The vessels lost last year, we are told,
were of 176,000 tons burden, and the number of
lives endangered no fewer than seven or eight
1 thousand! Had these vessels been duly exa-
mined what loss and risk might not have been
prevented ? It may bo all very well for those
whose property is insured, possibly beyond its
value, to urge that such a course would be pro-
ductive of injury to commerce owing to the
unreasonableness of seamen, but the lives of
gallant men are not to be endangered because of
a profitable myth. In the majority of instances
no hindrance would be occasioned, and, in what
may be called doubtful cases, an unpaid loca 1
board of reference, as we have already indicated,
in which the seaman should have his representa-
tive as well as the owner, and which could speedily
be got together, would protect all parties against
any conceivable caprice from any quarter. Wo
trust Lord ELLENBOROUGH will persevere and
bring forward a motion on the subject.