The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT CPT THE EDW. IC JTUTiNALS,

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The Times hopes that the decisive expression of. opinion:
On the Bill for the Abolition of Capital Punishment by a
Reformed House of Commons will fur a while repress the
agitation of this question. It must be felt that the change
one which ought not to be held out to the popular
expectation unless there is reasonable ground to think it
Will be approved by Parliament. Such a course fosters
,that very uncertainty of punishment which the advocates
of the measure so much deprecate. &cause the law has
failed to deter-some persons, it does not follow that it has
not deterred many others ; and how many these may be it
is impossible to say. We only know from universal experi-
ence that the love of life and the fear of death
are among the strongest passions in human
nature. It may even be observed that the
latest evidence of this universal feeling is furnished
by the advocates of this measure themselves. Their horror
of inflicting death is but an exaggerated reflection of the
horror with which death is regarded by men in general.
Now death we believe to be the only adequate, and there-
fore the only just, retribution for murder. and for this
reason a licalthy public feeling will always support capital
We cannot, indeed, refrain from observing
that the very countries inn bids the abolition of capital
punishment finds most favour are precisely those in which.
human life is least valued and violent crimes the least
reprobated. To judge from experience, it is not a sense of
the sanctity of life, but the lack of such a sense, which
disposes people to remit this punishment. Where
life is duly valued justice is felt to demand
that life should answer for life ; where it
is inadequately valued a similar instinct of jus-
tice is content with a lower penalty. If, in any
given class of cases, the :entente of death has become a
mere form, and that on grounds which commend them-
selves both to judges and to the public, there is certainly
strong reason for considering whether the law should not
be brought into conformity with custom. No doubt the
appellant jurisdiction of the Home Secretary requires
modification, especially in cases where fresh evidence is
admitted after the trial. But it is doubtful whether, in
dealing with capital convictions, we can ever dispense
with a strong discretionary power. We greatly doubt, in
short, whether a more rigid system than the present would
be found more satisfactory.
The Standard thinks that the secret of leaving the con,
sideration of the Scotch Education Bill until the fag•end
of the session lies in a curious intrigue, in which some of
the subordinate members of the government are the prin-
cipal actors, though, as usu..:; They have succeeded in
dragging their superiors into their quarrel. For years
past there has been growing up in Scotland a desire to
have their affairs managed by a Secretary, instead of by
the Lord Advocate, who is of necessity a lawyer. These
pleas and counter-pleas went on for several weeks, and
till they were settled all action on the Schools Bill was
postponed. At last the Lord Advocate triumphed ; the
question of the Secretary is pcstponed sine die; and the
education scheme is to be managed, as the Lord Advocate 1
first proposed, by a board. Ills victory, however, is
'dearly won. His opponents are furious at their defeat,
and they are now intriguing in their turn to defeat
the bill for the present session in order that the
whole question may be considered next year. In the
meantime they are loud in their denunciations of the
Government, who, they say, have deceived them not only
in this matter of the secretary, but also in putting the
bill at the last moment into a shape that makes it as little
'acceptable to them as to the House of Lords. And so
the people of Scotland are to be defrauded out of a
measure which they had been promised, and on which
they had set their hearts, on account of a miserable
,squabble for place and dignity between the Ministerial
subordinates, and because the Ministers, while shewing
their contempt for ono branch of the Legislature, have
failed to conciliate the other. We cannot pretend to be
sorry that the adherence of Scotland to the Liberal in-
terestbas met with such a reward at the hands of the
men in whom they reposed their faith, and we believe
that the heartburning and irritation which are now so
openly expressed among the Scotch members is but a pre-
-sage of the complete break up, at no distant day, of the
once compact Liberal majority.
The Telegraph refers to the report just presented by Mr.
Currie at a meeting of the Emigration Fund Society, held
at the Mansion House, with regard to the Dominion of
Canada, and Mr. Currie says that he has himself been an
employer of labour in that hapless Poplar district which of
late years has suffered so terribly ; he has taken much
interest in the various attempts to relieve its temporary

stagnation—or, to speak more correctly, congestion—of
labour ; and he has shewn that interest, in a creditably
practical way, by crossing the Atlantic and studying
the matter with his own eyes, on the spot to which it is
proposed that emigrants should be sent. Substantially,
his account tallies with that of all other trustworthy
witnesses. Neither in Canada, nor in the Mountains of the
Moon, nor in any other known place, can idle and foolish
people prosper well. On the other hand, if a man is
ready to work, knows a trade, and will live decently, he
can at once get fairly remunerative employment, with a
certainty of rapid improvement. Here, then, in the new
"Dominion" is work for a good detachment; and there
are dozens of other localities which stand as much in need
of English labourers as English labourers at home stand
in need of food, and of that independence which is the
daily bread of the soul. " The pity of it" is that the
whole thing should be still ;n such a wild, chaotic condi-
.tion. You find swarms of poor people setting off "to the
colonies," with about as much notion of what lies
before them as that possessed by the thousands who
joined the " Crusade of the Children" to perish mise-
rably long before they could reach the Holy Land.
Surely it is not yet too late to introduce some kind
of order into all this chaos. There are two great problems
before practical English statesmen, inextricably linked
'together—Education and Emigration—and in the wise
solution of these two lies the only remedy for the ugly
third problem, Pauperism. We should say, for our
own part, that it was highly necessary to revise our
emigration system--if we could only perceive that we had
at present, any "system" whatever to revise.

The Herald remarks that it is possible, if there were no
Patent Law, poor inventors would often be generously-
rewarded by rich employers when they hit upon a useful
idea. So in the same way, if there were no law establish.
ing a monopoly for the owner in quartern loaves people
who helped themselves out of a baker's shop might some-
times reward the baker. Bakers, however, prefer to have
their reward ensured to them by law, and to call the pro-
cess one of sale and purchase, and inventors seem for the
most part to travel in the same grooves of thought. 11
the confusion that does sometimes arise in conse-
quence of many patents being taken out about the
same kind of inventions be really growing and worth
a legislative remedy, it might be dealt with in
various ways, without resorting to such a rough-and-
ready plan as the abolition of the present law alto-
gether.
No one amongst the warmest defenders of the
principle of that law declares it perfect in details. It is
quite an open question how far it might he desirable to
exercise a supervision over the grant of patents by means
of some competent scientific tribunal, so that the occupa-
tion of too much ground by any one man might be pre-
vented, and the unfair obstruction of other inventors or
manufacturers be guarded against. At present, while the
Commissioners of Patents are merely law officers, the
'rights conferred under the Great Seal are scrambled for,
and if too much is given at random to one man, people
who suffer have to dispute his claims by regular legal
proceedings. It might be possible to revise all existing
patents, curtailing some rights at present enjoyed, even
abrogating others, and afterwards keeping watch over the
grant of new monopolies ; but to shirk the work of law
reform, and advocate the abolition of law, is surely a very
strange course for great lawyers to adopt.
The Post, in discussing Captain Tyler's report on the
passage of the Channel, says that the crossing of the
309,479 persons who faced the passage was effected under
conditions which do not look very inviting, for it appears
that of the 365 days in the year only 90 are npon au
average distinguished by calm weather in the Channel,
while 102 are marked by what is called with
grim irony " a good round sea and breezes," and 29 by
" gales and storms with heavy seas." It is unavoidable
that it should be more or less disagreeable to cross a
twenty-mile strait where, as in the Channel, two tidal
waves meet, and where_ there is so much strength and so
little duration in the prevailing winds. But it really
seems as if the passage were studiously made more dis-
agreeable than it need be. The steamers employed are very
small, generally dirty? and in all cases utterly destitute
of any adequate provision for rendering the voyage endur-
able ; so that, even in fine weather, they arrive
at the end of their journey with a freight of limp,
helpless creatures, who are for the most part lying where
they have happened to fall in a state of helpless aban-
donment. lii this condition they are compelled to collect
together their rugs, bandboxes, and carpet-bags, and,
bung round with luggage, to scale a pier lined with
spectators, to whom their small but very real miseries
are a delight. There is, however, no good reason
why we should for ever be condemned to small and
dirty steamers for making, the passage between the
two countries. Captain 'Tyler tells us that the ex-
penditere of £lOO,OOO at Dover and of £500,000 at
would render those two ports at least available
for vt=isrls 'if vel:eient tonpage and draught of water to
be adeT:ate for a fixed service capable of Icing carried on
at any time of tide, in any state of weather, and with
adequate cmi,fort to passengers. Surely this would be
comparatively a very small sum to pay for so great a boon.

The Slat. 1,111:01:3 that in laying submarine cables so
great au improvement has been wrou;d that, when the
electrical instrument 3 revealed the existence of a fault,
not more than a mile of the French caLle had
to be recovered before Mr. Smirch was enabled
to lay hands upon the treacherou3 NI ire which.
had perforated the gutta-percha ; while to cut
out the fault and to resplice the cable was to him an
easy task. Three times this delicate and dangerous
operation was rendered necessary ; and when the last
fracture was discovere 1, less resolute men might
well have despaired of the issue. An Atlantic gale
raging with ho toms violence that even the Great
Ea ;tern pitched an 1 rolled, and her decks were swept.
by angry seas ; villen it is remembered flint
Captain ilalpin hail to lack his ship against wind and
waves, it is not surprising that the cable should have
snapped ander the harsh strain. The marvel is that the
broken end was stopped on its flight towards the ocean in
sufficient time to enable the men to fasten it to a buoy,
and thus to ensure its recovery without the tedious proem
oi graPPlitz-