The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-29 00:00:00

Coming amongst his commercial auditors as a
stranger, according to his own graceful depreca-
tion of comment upon his being there and then
amongst them in the Chair of the Commercial
Travellers—although himself bound to the mer-
cantile world merely by the natural bonds subsist-
ing (from times of remote antiquity) between
Commerce and Literature. " Entering that
room among strangers to him personally,"
he said, "he yet felt as if he were
coming amongst familiar friends : and he trusted
that on leaving it that impression would be recip-
rocal." This—from Sir EDWARD LYTTON himself,
be it remembered ! For, as the Honourable
Member for Hertford (Mr. THOMAS CHAMBERS)
remarked, very charmingly, a little later on in the
evening, Sir EDWARD LYTTON could not be a
stranger in any assembly where the
English language was spoken—possessing,
himself, on the contrary, " the awful privi-
lege and responsibility of speaking by every
fire-side in England, in America, in fact wherever
the Anglo-Saxon tongue was known !" Thus, as a
friend, let us add, as a very dear friend of us all
—not by any possibility as a stranger—Sir
EDWARD LYTTON, or, rather, we must per-1
force here speak of him simply by his name of
fame—" Burimmt," cannot but have his presence
on Saturday evening at the London Tavern, as
Chairman of the annual dinner of the Commercial
Travellers, hailed with a sense of very peculiar
satisfaction by all ranks and classes of his fellow-
countrymen. His
presence there affords addi-
tional and impressive evidence of his sympathy with
meritorious need, and above all with the hope, with
the ambition, in one word, with the Future of the
Rising Generation. It was evidence—through the
poet, through the novelist, through the dramatist
—of the kindly nature, of the warm heart, of the
comprehensive aspirations of the philanthropist.
And the particular object of these gene-
rous sympathies on Saturday evening—
was it not an object in a very especial
manner, worthy of them, worthy of the most ear-
nest and cordial consideration ? That object
being simply the promotion of the interests of the
Commercial Travellers' School—a charitable es-
tablishment— in which the orphan children of an
eminently deserving class are tenderly nurtured
and wisely educated. An institution so intrin-
sically excellent in its character, and so obviously
good in its general design, that it has, in one
single decade, sprung from the merest germ to a
full and ripened maturity—a maturity giving
every promise of permanence. Having already,
after an existence of nearly ten years from the
date of its commencement, funded pro-
perty to the amount of 13,0001., pro-
ducing an annual income of 4001. sterling !
yearly subscriptions yielding 3,6001. upon an
average ! Making together, with the interest on
the funded property already mentioned, a total
fixed income of 4,000/. ! Educating by means of
this yearly income 109 boys and 52 girls, alto-
gether 162 children—securing a home for them
through a munificent outlay of no less than 26,047/.
expended upon land, contractor, architect, drainage,
gas works, farm-buildings,&c.! It was the advance-
ment of this noble institution which was the aim
of the convivial assemblage of Saturday—an aim
imparting an air of importance to the festivities,
evolving from them their golden fruits to the
tune of 1,5001., and securing to them the lustre
inseparable from the oratorical graces, the heart-
born eloquence, the fame and the genius of per-
haps the most illustrious living representative of
our national literature.

Mr. SMITH O'BBIEN again. This time on
affairs in general, and the Income Tax, and old
Ireland in particular. The mode, a lengthy epistle
—with a reproduction of which, by the way, we
have sot deemed it necessary to trouble our
readers. Of course, the letter possesses the usual
characteristics of the writer's productions, saving
and excepting hopefulness and elevation of tone.
With a great deal of balderdash there is here and
there a sprinkling of good sense. With not a
little narrowness of view and querulous captious-
ness, there is a little to which we can yield assent.
Altogether, the effect it produces amounts pretty
much to this—regret to recognise symptoms of the
writer's being drawn from the privacy that is good
for him into a vortex requiring a cooler head and
more ductile morals than his to be steered through
without danger to his peace and quiet, and the
welfare of others.

In the first plac3 he draws attention to the
movement in England against the continuance for
another year of the War portion of the Income
Tpearx. ty
THaxe, nwehxitchexhperedsseesserhibisee approval
sotf
just
of
all taxes.
xos.me,
Evenet‘ with
anlnfcaoymouerTaat hx,iifs
hands.pro So
properly gra-
duated,far we have no cause for exception. At this
stage, however, he makes a bolt. "If
therefore," he says, " the present Income Tax
were applied to purposes useful to Ireland, I
would rather urge a modification of its provisions
than a diminution of its amount." But the ques
tion now at issue, in his opinion, is—" Whether
the British Government ought or ought not to be
encouraged to subject the resources of Ireland in
order to maintain a war establishment for the
promotion of objects in which Ireland has uo
imaginable concern !" Why, this is " a more
excellent song than the other." The notion of a
diversity of interests between two portions of the
same empire, connected as England and Ireland
are, is even more absurd than the defunct cry of
a repeal of the Union. Who ever heard of a
people, to whom Imperial advantages were thrown
open, being permitted to claim the immunities of
a province? Yet this is what Mr. SMITH O'BRlEN-
evidently contemplates. Ireland is to be part
of England when it is profitable to be so,
but not a part of it when it is not is to
share in all the glory and solid pudding,
but to shirk Imperial taxation. And Ireland is
badly used because this is not the case. If Eng-
land were dragging Ireland down, there might be
some colourable reason for repugnance to Imperial
taxation ; but the contrary being notoriously the
case, the ludicrousness of the notion is only
equalled by the want of generosity it betrays.
We trust and believe Mr. SMITH O'BRIEN is
but an indifferent exponent of Irish feeling on
the matter. Ho next proceeds to inquire what
the empire and what Ireland has gained by the
late hostilities.

Be sure, the picture he paints of the operations
and result of the war is not of the brightest.
Agreeing, however, with much that he advances
respecting the mismanagement of the war, and
the inadequacy of its results, we can by no means
sympathise with the spirit manifest throughout
his remarks. His pleasure at that which occasions
us regret is but too apparent. Coming to
the last three months, we find him giving a qua-
lified disapproval of King BOMBA'S Government,
which looks as if he meant it to be inferred that
Naples is better governed than Ireland. In-
deed, from what follows, it would hardly be going
too far to assert, he appears as the advocate of
that much-injured monarch, who is one day
stabbed and another nearly blown up by his own
subjects, who ought to know the nature of his
rule best, From Naples to Herat is but a mo•