The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-29 00:00:00

TROPOLIT.I,V GOSSlP—Thursday.

Ministers have returned to town, and held their first
Cabinet Council of the season. There were two absentees—
the Marquis of Hartington, who is electioneering in
-Wales, and Lord Clarendon, whose absence is a sure
token that, however troubled foreign affairs may be, they
were not under discussion on Tuesday. Mr. Chichester
Fortescue's presence indicates that the topic of the day
was Ireland. And well it may be. Lord Russell's
letter—unless, indeed, it was intended as a pilot
balloon has not improved the position of the
Ministry. Even on the supposition that it was a feeler, it
is difficult to understand the object of writing it. The
policy which Lord Russell proposes is that which Mr.
Gladstone has emphatically repudiated over and over
again. The supposition of the Times, that because Mr.
Bruce said the Government were finding adifficultyin dis-
endowment, therefore they are desirous of changing
their position, seems to me quite unfounded. No one
doubts or has doubted all along that the Government had
a most difficult task. But the confession of this
difficulty no more implies shrinking from it than the
equally emphatic confession of difficulty in reducing the
public expenditure means that the Government intend to
make no reduction in the estimates. It is remarkable that
the Times, of all journals in the world, should have fallen
into this blunder. The very paper which contains it on
one page contains in another Mr. Lowe's explicit
announcement at the Gloucester banquet that disestablish-
ment and disendowment are both resolved upon, and that,
these changes accomplished, the Irish Church will be set
free from the trammels of the State. This is by far the
fullest explanation which has yet been given of the
Ministerial programme. It will rather cut away the
ground from under the feet of Mr. Disraeli, whose policy
was to " dish" his opponents by going in for a free
Church.

Mr. Lowe's speech last night was in many ways remark.
able. The announcement that the cost of the Abyssinian
war would prevent him from making any material reduc-
tions of taxation, will not surprise the readers of this
correspondence. Some weeks before Christmas I men-
tioned that Sir Stafford Northcote's estimate had been
exceeded by more than a million. Mr. Lowe also fully
bears out the statement which I made before the elections,
that Mr. Disraeli did not then contemplate resignation ;
'although I believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer
-is wrong in saying that the ex-Premier hoped for a

majority.
The excitement yesterday at Guildhall was something
tremendous. Business in the City was almost entirely
suspended. Not that any doubt was felt as to the course
which the Lord Mayor would take. From the first
opening of the proceedings in Overend and Gurney it was
felt that a sufficient case had been made out to send the
defendants to trial. Day by day the revelations became
more astounding and damaging, until they culminated in
the disgraceful episode whereof Mr. Edwards, the official
assignee, was the hero. Even not very strait-laced City
men were disgusted by this worthy's proceedings, and he
had to stand a storm of hisses and execrations such as are
usually reserved for wife-beaters and murderers from a
virtuous London mob. The pity is that he cannot be
touched by the law, and that the worst which can happen
to him is that he will be deprived of his post by the
Lord Chancellor. Mr. Stefanos Xenos promises some
further revelations about " the Corner House," and as he
pretty broadly intimates that Mr. Edwards extorted
money from him we may look for fresh scandals. Mean-
while, Dr. Thom is scarcely the hero of the day that he
deserves to be. He undertook the prosecution at his own
cost and in spite of enormous deterrent pressure brought
to bear upon him. Now, even the Times, which depre-
cated the proceedings, admits that they have been fully
justified. I learn that the directors of several other
companies are to be prosecuted. It may easily be con-
ceived, therefore, that the present are not happy times
for City men. The representative of one leading house
burst into tears when the Overend and Gurney committal
was announced to him. At the same time it is generally
admitted that the Lord Mayor could have taken no other
course than that which he has taken.
The much-talked-of submarine telegraph to India is
likely to be an accomplished fact at last. Government
have been repeatedly advised to give a guarantee for this
project, and, considering the national importance thereof,
that assistance might justly have been given. But this
is not a time to ask statesmen to incur a money
responsibility, and so the matter has been taken
in hand and will be carried through by private
energy. The projector is Major Leveson, well-
known as an author under the pseudonym of " The
Old Shikaree." He has had some knocking about
in his time. He received a ball in his foot when fighting
in India twenty-six years ago. He had a sabre cut on his
head in the light cavalry charge at Balaklava, and a bullet
in his head at Inkermann, which rendered it neces-
sary for him to undergo the operation of trepan-
ning. He had a bayonet through his left side,
touching the lobe of the left lung, and was wounded
in the jaw at Lagos. He has shot tigers in
India, gorillas in Africa, and was at the capture of Mag-
dala. In spite of all these adventures and misadventures
he is in good health and so full of energy, that he, a mili-
tary man, has succeeded in bringing to a successful begin-
ning an enterprise which our City men have been talking
about for years, but never had the pluck to carry out. At
the first meeting of the projector and his friends, £450,000
out of the £550,000 required was raised. There can
scarcely be a doubt of the success of the undertaking. The
national importance of it in the event of Eastern com-
plications cannot be over-estimated.

The principle of industrial partnerships, like all new
ideas, progresses slowly, but it does not absolutely stand
still. A Bradford firm, of which Mr. Ripley, M.P., is the
head, have adopted the scheme. All the workpeople will
receive at the end of every year a share of theprofitsinpropor-
tion to the amount of wages earned during the previous twelve
months. No investment of any capital is needed to give
a claim to a dividend. Whatever may be the final result
of this new idea, few industrial questions can be
more interesting. A few more trials on a large scale are
necessary in order to ascertain fully how it will work, but
already one objection, of which much was made at first,
has proved purely imaginary. It was at first thought that
the privacy of business arrangements, the just secrecy so
necessary to successful trading, would be largely destroyed.
Nothing can be further from the fact. A friend of mine
who has tried the experiment in a moderate establishment
tells me that his people know as little of his aff airs now as they
did before the change was made. Towards the end of the
year the workmen meet and choose a solicitor or accountant
of recognised position, whom the firm admits to confidence.
All necessary facts are laid before him ; the workmen
know nothing, and care to know nothing, but the dividend
which falls to them. They have such confidence in their
employers as to be willing to accept their statement with-
out inquiry. There then remains only the question
whether the advantage of the system repays the little
trouble it involves. My friend answers in the affirmative.
The scheme is good in principle, and there is no reason
why it should nut in many cases work well in practice. It
would not answer in some species of trading —Overend
and Gurney's, for instance.
Amid all the revelations of rotten companies it is satis-
factory to find that there is one employment which is both
honest and lucrative—the crossing-sweeper's. A day
or two ago it was mentioned in the papers that a sweeper
made as much as 30s. before breakfast on Christmas. On
ordinary occasions he will often make that amount in
a week, provided he is sharp and clever. There is
another employment which is more lucrative
at least. I have lately heard some curious revela-
tions of quacks. Ido not mean the vile black-
guards who go by the name of silent friends, but the com-
paratively harmless race who deal in patent medicines.
Everybody has heard of Parr's Life Pills. They were ori-
ginally prepared by a surgeon of Louth, in Lincolnshire,
who died about two years ago. He gave the prescription
to a person who, having risen from the streets, afterwards
rose to be a wealthy man, the proprietor of one of the
most successful journals now in existence, and a member
of Parliament for a Lincolnshire borough. He was then
a commercial traveller, and in moving about he mentioned
these pills to his fellow-travellers, who generally spoke
well of them. The future senator thought that he might
as well turn these golden opinions to good account. So he
named the medicine Parr's Life Pills, puffed them well,
and they soon brought him in sufficient money to start the
successful journal above mentioned, and which made his
fortune. But as for the Louth surgeon, his w'.s a case of
sic 'cos non vobis mellificatis apes. He reaped
none of the golden harvest, and died as he had lived, a
country surgeon. " Solomon's Balm of Gilead " had A
still more extraordinary origin. The inventor was the
son of an Israelite residing in Hull, and was sent forth by I
his father with a box of jewellery, and told to make his
fortune out of it. He went to Liverpool, and fell in with
a man of about the same extensive resources as his
own, but with plenty of inventive power. The pair
concocted a soothing mixture, advertised it to their last
shilling, and addressed some of it to a consignee in New
York. It excited the suspicions of the Custom-House
officers, was seized by them, and was paid for on the
ad valorem duty, about one-tenth of the selling price.
This was hard for the guileless Israelites ; but they had
their revenge. The Customs officials tried to sell the stuff,
but found no market, for it turned out to consist largely
of treacle. The Yankees admire 'cuteness, and Solomon
became highly respected. They purchased his nostrum,
and so there was balm in Gilead for the at one time almost
ruined Hebrew. In a second case pills were the vehicle to
fortune. A Yorkshire hosier, in a small way of business,
thought that patent medicines for the inside were

more lucrative than stockings for the outside, so he