The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-14 00:00:00

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(Prom t7:e
A Statesman who has for many years spoken and
acted in Parliament with all the advantage that the
support of a largo political party, the enjoyment of
high office,' and the possession of enormous patro-
naes can give him, ought to be very careful indeed
what measures he proposes when stripped of these
adventitious advantages. Human nature is prone
to magnify
present and to depreciate past great-
ness ; and unless, as is not very likely, his former
success attends the statesman when out of office, it
is sure to be said that all his great actions were the
gift of fortune, and all his failures entirely his own.
Never was the truth of this observation more
strikingly evinced than in the House of Commons
on Friday last. Conscious of the ground which he
had lost in the estimation of the public by his pre-
mature resignation of office and his unfortunate
proceedings at Vienna, Lord John Russell sought
for
.a subject involving enough difficulty to
make it asetrlement, if it should be obtained, a real
and sul.stAntial triumph, and enough interest to
rivet upon it the attention of all men and all
cheoes. That which lie sought ha found in the
question of national education. With great care
and pains, with infinite deliberation, and with no
little parade and flourish, Lord John Russell
introduced to the House a scheme which has
proved more utterly futile and abortive than any-
thing we at present reme caber—a scheme which
trite I against it every shade of party, evrry class
of political opinion—a
.scheme which everybody
was ready to attack, anti nobody to defend ;
founded, as it appeared to us, in complete igno-
rance of the national character, the sentiments of
Parliament, and the exigencies of the question
itself. it requires considerable talents and con-
siderable position, high connections, and great po-
litical experience, to enti le any man to make so
complete a failure as that which Lord John Rus-
sell achieved for himself on Friday night. Had
he not been the person to whom for many years
the Government of the country was intrusted,
whose voice at one time swayed the deliberations
of Parliament, who introduced and carried one
Reform Bill, and is for ever threatening us with
another, the utter break-down of Lord John Rus-
sell and his measure would have lost a great part
of the piquancy which they now possess. We really
do not believe that if all those votes were deducted
which were given from personal kindness or from
old recollections Lord John Russell would have
been able to muster 40 members in support of the
scheme to which ho looked for the restoration of
his damaged reputation. In vain the Government
generously flung its weight into his scale, the ad-
verse impression was too strong to be resisted, and
the effort to break the fall of the former leader of
the Whig confederacy served but to mark and tes-
tify its completeness.
It we were to point out the causes of the
Parliamentary decline and fall of Lord John
Russell we should assign a conspicuous place to
that predilection for what are called " compre-
hensive measures" which Lord John Russell has so
strongly evinced. It is not, so far as we have been
enabled to judge, that he has been in the habit of
seeking very deep for principles, hut that he insists
upon dealing with every part of a large question at
once and thus raising against himself the greatest
possible amount of opposition, while he conciliates
the least possible amount of support. Having made
his reputation in a revolutionary period, he is apt
to treat subjects in a manner which can only suc-
c ed when supported by the same amount of popu-
lar discontEn- as the first Reform Bill. There is a.
complete want of sympathy—an utter incompatibi-
lity between Lor l John Russell and the present
House of Commons. Whether or no we attribute
this phenomenon to the right cause, there can be
no doubt of its existence, and as little, we should
think, as to the solution of the difficulty. Lord
John Russell can scarcely expect to regain The fore-
most place in the deliberations of the House of
Commons; Parliaments, like individuals, are apt to
be swayed by hope rather than gratitude, and it is,
on the other hand, hardly to be asked of him that
lie should be content to occupy in such an as-
sernhly a second rate position ; his struggles to
regain his lost place are futile as regards himself,
and painful to his friends. We do not sup-
pose, either, that there is anything indiscreet or
improper in adverting to the fact that, notwith-
standing his long, and in many respects great
services, Lord John Russell is not likely to be
returned again for the oity of London, and we
confess that, we should see with pain so eminent a
person running up and down in search of a con-
stituency, or driven to the inglorious alternative of
accepting a seat from among the boroughs or
counties which own the influence of the Duke of
Bedford. Late years have, as we have often ob-
served, contributed in an unusual degree to the
destruction of political reputation, and it is expe-
dient on every ground that this process should be
arrested at the earliest possible period. Little as
we have seen to approve of late years in the poli-
tical career of Lord John Russell, we would desire
for a man who has filled so considerable a part in
our own times, and whose name is doubtless des-
tined to no inconsiderable place in the history of
England, a finale more tranquil and more dignified
than that which is piomised to him in the House
of Commons.

1856,

[ PRICE 4D. STAMPED SDO

METR9POLITAAT BOARD OF WORKS.

-On Friday a meeting of the board was held in No. 1
Committee room, Guildhall—Mr. President Thwaites in
the chair.

SOUTHWARK IMPROVEMENT.'

A. deputation from St. Saviour's and. Christ Church,
Southwark, presented a Memorial advocating 'the—ean-
struetion of a new line of' street from High-street, South-
wark, to Stamford-itreet, stating that such an improve-
ment was, o r various ground, the one which ought first
to engage the attention of the board, and for the carrying
out of which a sum of 85,9001. was in hand.

The subject has already been twice publicly discussed
at bowl meetings, and Mr. Apsley Pellat, M.P., who
accompanied the deputation, and other gentlemen stated
that they had come -before the board that day at the
particular instigation of Sir B. Hall, who bad inti-
mated his desire that a plan approved by the board
should be submitted to him before the end of June,
because, if the works were not completed
before 1860, the 85,0001. would be no longer applicable
to such a purpose. The right hon. baronet had likewise
given the deputation to understand that, in case a plan
recommended by the board was presented to him of
which he could approve, he would support in the House
of Commons the application for the Act of Parliament.

It is one of the many useful functions of the
House of Peers that it offers to the politician who
can neither maintain the foremost place nor grace-
fully descend to the second a harbour of refuge in
which his shattered political barque may ride at
anchor safe from the storms that rage without.
That assembly, in which Lord Cha ham and Sir R.
Walpole sought repose at the end of their stormy
political career, might surely perform the same
good office for Lord John Russell, and in his person
a title ever memorable in the political history of
England might be revived. We do not believe
that among the friends and supporters who still
remain to Lord J hn Russell there is one who
would not read with a feeling of relief the
an-
nouncement that his long and checkered career
in the House of Commons had at last come to a
close, and that he had accepted an honourable
retirement from the fierce contests of party which
his long services have undoubtedly merited, which
is suitable to his birth and his station, and which
seems the only alternative left that can free him

from a succession of mortifications and humiliations
such as no one either of his supporters or oppo-
nents would willingly see heaped upon Lim.
Doubtless to be the head of a powerful political
party in the House of Commons is a position more
prominent, influential, and attractive that any that
the House of Peers, in the present state of our
constitution, has to offer ; but to Lord John Rus-
sel we believe that position is no longer open, and
we cannot but think he would do more wisely to
content himself with what he might easily retain
—a leading position in the House of Lords—than
to waste the remainder of his life in importunate
struggles after an opportunity which he failed to
use wisely when it was his own, and which is not
wont to return to those who save once let it slip
from their grasp. We are living in a new political
' era. The bonds of party allegiance are now
loosened, the power of individual leaders is dimin-
ished, the public mind is no longer stung by that
general sense of injury and misgovernment which
25 years ago gave the Whip their power and their
success. The very triumphs of Reform and Free
Trade have impaired the influence of their original
supporters. New men and new questions arise,
and it is granted to few to remain for ever in the
van of an age pressing rapidly forward in the path
of political, social, and material progress. The
weary advocate gladly reposes in the comparative
quiet of the bench ; the most indefatigable parish
priest sighs for the repose of the episcopal throne ;
why should not the political combatant who has
spent the third of a century in the conflicts of
Harty be well content to close his long career amid
the tranquil shades and venerable associations of
the House of Lords ?

THE RECENT EMBEZZLEMENT BY A

G OVE .LAMENT CLEBK.

PORTSMOUTH, April 12.—T0-day the trial came on o
George Joseph Nathaniel Charlier, clerk in the Gun
Wharf here, for the embezzlement of 1,1301., the amount
of a cheque entrusted to him to get cashed, for the pay-
ment of the quarterly and weekly salaries of the War
Department at this port. The Recorder was J. D. Cole•
ridge, Esq.
The evidence was precisely the same as that taken at
the examination before the bench of magistrates.
Toe jury, after a short consultation, returned a verdict
that the prisoner was not guilty of embezzlement, but •
larceny, under the third count.
The usual qu lation being asked by the Recorder, th
prisoner, in a partially suppressed voice, said—l throw
myself on the mercy of the Court. I bave suffered the
loss of my position, the lose of my fair name, of the pen•
sion of 50/. a-year to which I should have been entitled,
if I bad had to leave the service from illness. I have
been already deeply punished, and now I can only throw
myself entirely on the mercy of the Court.
The Recorder, addressing the prise nor by name, said
—You have been convicted on the clearest evidence of a
most serious crime—a crime eeliberatelv planned and
prepared beforehand. That crime involves a breach o
the great trust reposed in yru by the Government of
your country, and by the officers under whom you wer •
employed, That crime is not alone against the Govern •
moot of this country and your superior officers, but it is
a crime, too, against the wife and children whose claims
to consideration have just been pressed upon me by your
counsel. There is no circumstance to excuse its committal,
and it is one that deinan.'s a marked punishment. It is
necessary for the security of society that such a crime
sly uld meet with a severe and terrible punishment. and
I therefore feel it my duty to sentence you to five years'
penal servitude. (From the sensation produced iu court
. it v, as evident that so severe a sentence was not autici•
pated )—Hampshire Telegraph.

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