The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Election Commissions, says, the Times, continue
to unfold their miserable tale of the insensibility with
which large bodies of Englishmen may learn to regard the
exercise of a public trust. The disclosures at Beverley,
Bridgwater, and Norwich affect, not one, but all classes
in those towns ; and they indicate a corruption by 11°
means confined to contests for a seat in Parliament'
Venality in electors springs not so much from a deaf('
of adequate political motives under the existing system 95
from incapacity to appreciate any political motives. The
vote represents nothing to them, but they see it has ita
worth to other people, and they traffic upon this know
ledge, as savages require a price for goods which are of
no value to themselves. Such voters, if positively
debarred from selling their votes, would for the most
part not vote honestly, but simply not vote at all. We
trust that the result of the commissions will bring home to
the minds of candidates a sense of the little
security they can expect in future from their
wilful ignorance of the destination of the funds which
they or their friends have been so liberal in providing'
The local politicians, who are, perhaps, the most guilt,'
of all parties concerned in the matter, 'will also have had
an impressive lesson. One who was examined on TuesclnY
at Bridgwater stated, with evident sincerity, that "the
mental grief, anguish, and torture that had been occasioned
by this inquiry had been more than he could describe.
Another at Beverley protested that he had not had*
night's rest since Mr. Baron Martin's visit. Nothing
is clearer from the inquiries instituted by the Cora.
missions than that the public opinion of the guilty locality
itself cannot be trusted to resist bribery. All the persons
concerned conspire to keep each other in countenance'
But the nation is more honest and virtuous than all it/
several parts, and a fortiori than parts like Beverley and
Bridgwater. The public opinion of the whole country, ~
may be hoped, will be excited by the recent disclosure,
and in the mirror it will hold up these places themselves
may be made to see how very ugly their practices 10nIc'
If any faith can be put in the durability of impressions
produced under the duress of Royal Commissions, the
principals in the corruption already perceive the enormity
of their offence. This species of penalty will hardly, //6
fear, be equally efficient against venal voters ; but the
punishment of the bribers will be the first step to the
reformation of the bribed by depriving them of theif
market.

The Post declares that the memories of 1866 still oppres°
us. Ordinarily the effects of a panic wear themselves out
in three years, and people who have burnt their fingell
forget the pain of the operation. But it is not so in the
present instance. It seems as if nothing could efface the
recollection of "Black Friday," with all that went before
and all that has followed it. This is the penalty which
is paying for the revelations of 1866, and for the die
honesty that made them possible. Compared to the
enormous number of persons who were either ruined, or Ill°
more or less suffered by that dishonesty, those who pre.
fited by it must have been few. Since the panic of 1866°,6
Legislature has done nothing to diminish any of the Pet°
of which investors have had such bitter experience. 110
Royal Commission has been issued to search to the root
of the disaster that culminated in that awful 1311'et
Friday," and to see if they are not traceable to causes, song
of which might be preventible. If, to-morrow, the 10131
looked-for confidence were to make its appearance, and -
the boarded millions which have been waiting for ince,e;:
went were to open their flood-gates and stream into t 111"
or that channel of speculation, we should certainlY 6°3:
repetition of the old game, in which the honest people g
to the wall, while the astute people carry off the plunticuti
Yet it is occasion of surprise that capital is et
so sensitive, and that it is loth to entrust it°if
to the keeping of irresponsible directors. Such it
lesson as that of 1866 is not easily forgotten.
1.11
contained the experience of previous panice,.:„/
addition to its own ; and their accumulated teach
declares the melancholy truth that, as the law stag's'
investment on the strength of prospectuses, lists of clire
tors, half-yearly reports and dividends, is a mere " 10131 ii
the dark," with a thousand to one in favour of your 11.
ing in a morays instead of on terra firma. Under elle
circumstances it is folly to look for a revival of confidei'ee:
Until the Legs'ature secures to investors some bete;
guarantee for the safety of their money than they 1111111,
had hitherto, we can only reckon on the possibility
ofi of eti"o.,
a revival by supposing that men are incapable of pr
by the most bitter teaching of experience.
The Standard remarks that another fearful Triilllllfr
he
catastrophe adds the weight of its terrible testimony
warnings which have already been uttered on this subjeiTie
in so striking a manner of late. This time it is front t
other side of the Atlantic that we receive intelligence:,
fresh sacrifices to the present system of colliery nut°l3to
ment, and the scale of the disaster is commenstO 0
with the magnitude of American undertakings. 11,!;,
hundred men and boys have been killed—not t'''d
time by the explosion of fire-damp or by the irruPtll)t.--
of water into the mine, but by a new kind of acciden,i
So far as the particular cause of this accident is concern
e"'
we are not in any need of the lesson which it inculestel
All important mines in England must have two distiribe
shafts, and we believe that the regulations in force Zvi
us even forbid the presence in a new mine of more thane,
certain number of colliers until the two shafts are c°
structed. But the two hundred miners in PennsylvA'o
have been killed in the same way, looking at the niattre
broadly, in which hundreds of English miners he'll
been killed already, and in which hundreds more `iej
doubtless be killed again. Their lives were iroPeritiot
to save expense. In an enterprise so gigantic AS tif
of coal-mining in England, individuals concerned 31%0
fairly discharge their minds from all responsibilitl'y
long as they carry out the regulations laid (I°W/i-ot
Government. The responsibility rests on the countr'o•
large—on the Government. Concurrently with the lieieb
phatic warnings delivered by the terrible accidents W ua
have lately taken place at home, on the Continent' let
in America, the miners themselves are crying °l2t.heit
closer supervision, for a more rigorous control of the
proceedings by proper officers. The duty wilietizooet
course of events would have imposed on the Govern
ref,
in any case is made immeasurably more imperativeaj'eri
that its urgency is perceived by the unlettered co

, themselves.
en al
f.. 14 The Herald observes that many people have .9': 08
unfavourable view of the chances of navigation '''',, the
Suez Canal. It is urged that the wave create /3r be
passage of a large vessel through a narrow channel ` a o, 0
very destructive to the banks ; that a very low epee noon
will be found possible ; and that the constant ot°--tilei
of the dredging machines, no matter how diligently -,
Iv
ti il° ,
are employed, will fail to maintain a regular and -lan Ow
depth of water. The genius and perseverance vidlic-bIIV.
triumphed over difficulties declared to be insupera As
'-
which have found 'solutions one by one for aging
multitudinous embarrassments which arose to
the progress of the work—may well be exPectoegvo,
defeat the smaller troubles which may oppose the:4o4e:
to the successful navigation of the canal now that none 0,
Still it would be useless to expect that this can be We
at once, that every dilemma which may arise wb,ello IP
vessels begin to use the canal can all be foreseen fro 011116,.
first. Vessels must face a certain amount of risigteecle
the passage of the isthmus is a novelty, risk not 01, delay'
disaster of an overwhelming character, but °''oaglig
and expense. These risks the canal company ,„ failt'
Peil-kns be wise to take upon their own shoulders a"toroil,
Its object tar some timeto come will be to tempt uc°3„o of.,
through the canal. Even when the canal is
still risks enough to b‘t faced by shipowners or livid
writers, in the Red Sea ; and until the mercantile 0%, 106
the world begin to know their way through its reprig tta
grow fearless, if that may be hoped for, by fill'iorill t
dangers net so serious as they are represented, it age ti
well to make the passage of the canal at all eventatified.
and secure as may be. The company is fully. Ps ng,55'"01
requiring the presence on board every vessel retail:4
passed thunder"
through of one of their own pilots. Sea captaie,,ecel
be expected to comprehend such exceptional Ana rde9P-
tb tbt
work as that of navigating their craft across, jo,_„iii
But if the company assumes, as it has right 'c' it 101"
control of the vessel, we are inclined to think that
also assume the responsibility for her safety
• het
or 0;
The Daily News says that caricature publicatiltsheli,'
recentlyincreased in number, and a new variety coot
has been introduced. Two of our weekly Conic colotle •
poraries have distinguished themselves by their Naves ,
• h who,
cartoons ; but it is not alone the colour whic h. '..„ra
difference between these designs and PY",,,c"t fellt",e,
belong to a distinct school, the most Kolinti,,„.'" vsgsx'we
of which is a kind of phantasmagoric ex"-hicn we.
The pictures in both the periodicals to weseliv 0
allude are very clever, but they are not 1;000 1*
The colouring is often lurid, and the coinP lion ailmit
frequently pervaded by a grimness of concerliiiiog ~,,,a
wild grotesqueness of detail that are sc3l'..are r° to
laughter-moving. Nothing in the way of caricapl_eroty
be more horrible than the sketch of the sick itself,Ev' ho
which we recently referred ; and the subject A. e.,
quite unfitted for such a mode of treatrarais !gee
prevalence of this species of art in Pcri°,l‘' an°,.".,0
cially designed for light entertainment, 2' .. o'oo
fact proving the decay of genial hutnou'refer of
we lamented some time back. If we iesigil 00
the eorlicr volumes of Punch, the coloured
ci
~,,,,s,ris re
the Tomahawk and Vanito Fair seem in the T"We I,e.
like episodes in Ilolbein's " Dance of Deatb:00(P,1:11
getting saturnine and savage in our playful u• A vt"
strike as hard with the crayon as with a stilettom.
e''o'f
ifiii;
different feeling, however, was expressed by s.°.atilia, 1.44.
younger men of the Regency ; and one in PSall_hooli. A
iS still living and working amongst us, arid w,s svit?_tal
strikes our eyes in the photographic windos
to go
look of vigorous shrewdness that seerns,_..,en .001
time and change, bent all his
oi 6eo*
powers, her veli 40
and sixty years ago, to the reform 0
and social abuses. We allude, of course,
_,"ch o.dfd
Cruikshank. No modern man has caught so_rits trpi
genius of Ilogarth, both in its conno and , he ill/
ego.- - tll.--'
have remotely derived from his great predccw
__,000,, i
elements, as this gifted designer ; and to wilily
.. be P„i
added many qualities of his own. Leech_ .r voir
humourist of the most delightful kind ; so is M. 11021
when he likes it ; and so is Mr. Richard Doyi ~. r,
his modesty keeps him so much in the backgr_ot no_,A r•
not the last-named gentleman again come foorr2
give us something to look at more pl,eamiSkii, , tw"
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