The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC 'JOURNALS.

The Times thinks the practice of despatching the junior
members of the Royal Family on roving embassies, with
no instructions except to cultivate loyalty and kindliness
through the vast circle of the British Dominions, is a happy
discovery of the present reign. Its advantages are obvious,
and the chances of failure of these missions ought not to
be very numerous. All that is expected of such repre-
sentatives of the Queen and British nation is that they
should fairly represent the rank of life in which they
have moved—that they should act, that is, as the
first of English gentlemen. No difficult diplomatic pro-
blems have to be solved by them, and if their lives appear
to accord with their high fortunes, they have done all that
is required of them. Whatever corner of the globe they
visit, the one desire of the whole population is to treat
them so that they may carry away with them
pleasant recollections; and their part is to suffer them-
eelves to be amused. However, it is easy to undervalue
the difficulties which are inherent in such a position
It is a very different thing for a person to be left
free to amuse himself, and to have—and with an
untiring good grace and seeming thankfulness--to
take his amusements ready picked at the hands of others.
To be obliged to accept the services of others becomes
itself a kind of slavery, and that not a light one. English
Princes who will net or cannot accept this destiny, and
live up to the c‘ndition to which they were born, with all
its obligations, arc— so long, at least, as they do rot pass
certain easily recognised Emits—entitled to indulgence ;
but we are very glad to find that Nova Scotia does not
appear to be of opinion that any such indulgence is needed
by Prince Arthur.

The Standard declares that Miss Burdett Coutts has
rendered another public service. There cannot be the
slightest doubt but that her remarks upon the humane
treatment of animals are necessary. It is impossible
to look upon clouds of birds in the sky, flocks and
herds in the fields, creatures stored for purchase
in the market or for exportation, and living
victims in steamers, railway trains, and the holds
of common merchant vessels, without acknowledg-
ing that a principle of cruelty is paramount which
ought to be seriously denounced. Nobody can ever have
crossed the Charnel in a commercial, as distinguished
from a passenger beat, without perceiving painfully this
fact. The cattle, the sheep, and the pigs are huddled and
tortured all day and night together in unnecessary suffer-
ing ; they are doomed to die, of course, for they have been
sold as food ; but why exasperate their misery? Why
make of the brute a more wretched victim than is indis-
pensable for the purpose of common life ? Miss Coutts,
speaking of live stock, says, reasonably enough, that
there is a depravity in its treatment while carried across
the Channal. The suppression of cruelty, however
exhibited, must be a moral good, inestimably useful.
And it is a remarkable fact that a duty apparently
so simple should be in practice so difficult. From the
torture of a calf in a slaughterhouse to the stoning of a
linnet in a hedge ; from the worrying of a dog to the
flaying of a cat—omitting all remembrance of bull and
bear beating—how many vulgar pleasures have not been
associated with cruelty? Yet animals are the friends of men.
If it be requisite, as of course it is, to use them for our
nourishment, given to us as they are for food, there can be
no' justification for their callous maltreat meat as they travel
on their way to the abbatoir. We may not go so far as
Miss Coutts in recommending a particular course of
ethical education for graziers, cattle dealers, and butchers,
but we agree with her completely in thinking that gross
inhumanities are practised throughout the home and
foreign trade. It is not to the credit of an age priding
itself upon special civilising characteristics that such a
reproach should exist. While, therefore, not waiting for
any Academy of Mercy to be established, we may fairly
urge that the suggestions of Miss Burdett Coutts should
be adopted in so far as they recommend a public opinion
favouring pity to the poor creatures doomed to be our prey.

Everybody, says the Star, knows how charming a thing
is a good breakfast in France. Contrast the morning
meal at the Hotel Royale of Dieppe, for instance—only to
speak of watering-places—with the morning meal at
Eamsgate, or even at the princely Brighton. Consider
even the Americans, whose cooking is, perhaps, the very
worst, and whose notions about meals are the very lowest
and most detestable of any nation in the world. Yet even
the American is alive to the importance of break-
fast, and pays rather more attention to it than
to anything else in the day. Compare the superb
variety of breads at a New York hotel with the
monotonous muffin, and dreary dry toast, and
leathern or flabby roll, of corresponding hostelries in
London or Manchester. There is the same inferiority in
every other item. The drinks of the English hotel
breakfast arc as few and as un varied as tin y can he ; only
tea and coffee, and not even to the brewing of these does
the cook l•ring :my thought or pains. The meats are
either cold, dreary, and untempting relies of the day or
even week before, or else the everlasting, sole, clap, or
rasher- a-n. sauce, $Oll3 dressing, :airs cri,pncsF, sung
everything. Let nol (dy think, as ti,st solemnly foolish
people do think, that 1.1,( se 11,ings are worthy of no con-
cern. For they Mina health and spirits, nail and
spirits mean ever} thing. We take a great deal of pains
that a doctor should Lin,w his Il(fissiou,roil should
practice it with due same i•f respoi sibility. There is just
as much reason why we should be careful about coiling
as about doctoring, if people would only consider things
rightly ; and it is simply pouring water through a sieve,
if we are very careful to seek good doctoring while we are
not at all careful to avoid poor and monotonous cooking,
A considerable reform is going on in the provision of railway
refreshments before the sti mutating example of an enter-
prising firm. Why should not hotel-keepers set a cor-
responding example in the matter of breakfasts? Nowhere
is there so lunch room for wise innovation and cupeptie
reform.

The Telegraph reminds us that the St. Leger owed it
origin, as an established race, to the sporting predilections
of a nobleman who became, six years after its birth, the
Prime Minster of England. On the 22nd of September
in the year 1778, there was held, at the Red Lion Inn, in
Doncaster, the customary racing ordinary or dinner—then
the fashion of the period—with Lord Rockingham in the
chair. It seemed good to the racing pundits then and there
assembled, that the insignificant three-year-old race,
which had crept into existence in 1776, should thencefortn
become one of the historical equine contests of Great
Britain ; and that, in compliment to a great patron of
the Turf, who lived iu the immediate neighbour.
hood, at Park-hill, it should take its name from Colonel
St. Leger. From this small acorn, planted in the con-
genial soil of Yorkshire, has grown that mighty oak,
"the Greitt St. Leger Stakes at Doncaster." It is
characteristic of the the unpretending days «Lich saw the
origin of our famous north-country race, that for many
years it went by the unobtrusive name of "St. Leger's
Stakes." If, during the nine decades which have since
intervened, the fame of England's gi eat south-country-
race has somewhat paled the lustre of " the St. Leger,"
there ' will not be wanting men at Doncaster—
some of them, it may be, grimy artisans fresh
from the black forges at Sheffield, and others,
ruddy farmers from the East Riding wolds—who
have never "bowed the knee to Baal" by going to
see the Derby run for. To them "t' Leger" is still
the great race of England. There will be some there to
recall how, in their boyhood, they staked a crown upon
Jack Spigot, and saw Bill Scott steer to victory the first
of his nine St. Leger winners. If his still surviving
brother, John Scott, should be present this year,
undimmed memory will perhaps be aroused by-recollec•
tions of " Reveller with the mighty stride," or of Filho
da Puta's victory in the glorious year of Waterloo. Nnr
will he be. the only denizen of Yorkshire who still
exclaims, in spite of railroads and their assimilating ten-
dencies, "It is better to be hanged on the wolds than to
be feasted at Newmarket!"

The Daily News strongly recommends the use of cool
and temperate language to the venous corporate and
other bodies iu Ireland who desire an amnesty for the
Fenian prisoners. What they want will never be extorted
from us by threats. Some of the prisoners who were
released &hewed a shameful-disregard for common sense
or decent feeling of any kind in roaring and ramping from
platforms and dinner benches, twenty-four hours after
the Bridwell doors had opened for them, the same sort
of pestilent stuff which had led to their convictions.
The national papers of Ireland should approach
this subject with better judgment than they are
in the habit of exhibiting on kindred topics—that is if
they are really sincere in desiring to see the Fenians
liberated. We believe that the matter is being taken up
by a sensible majority of Irish people in a far different
spirit from that which the Nation and the Irishman find,
it so profitable to cultivate ; but, at the same time, we
cannot deny that these organs possess an influence
amongst enthusiasts and pseudo-enthusiasts, who may, by
their rashness and heat, seriously embarrass the efforts of
those who do not wish to know that the Fenians are at
Woking or Millbank one hour longer than is necessary. It is
downright cruel and stupid for such people and
their press instigators to throw difficulties, which we
Are afraid they are totally or wilfully incapable of
understanding, in the way of the mild and clement
policy to which the present. Government is enthely dis-
posed, and almost pledged. It might, indeed, be resolved
upon to act altogether over the heads of the fanatics, and
0 listen only to the reasons and desires of the Irish
people, as these reasons and desires might be represent d
through the channels of petitions and other responsible
media ; by this means a severe rebuke would be given to
the treason-mongers, and perhaps the slight would be even
understood by the dupes who put faith in the dismal
trash offered for age by t 49 Abkeylitregi ydiga jit
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