The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-13 00:00:00

an attempt.

garded as law breakers, not as mere conventional
offenders; and the consequence is that neither will

give evidence against the other, and as such transac

tions seldom admit the presence of a third party,
conviction is hopeless.

The Ballot may not in some respects fulfil all the
expectations formed of it ; but it can hardly fail to
diminish very considerably the temptation to political
dishonesty, while it will inevitably remove mucl'. of
the disorder consequent on elections, by doi❑g away
ith the system of treating, the meetings in public-
houses, &c., which are all fruitful of evil. Its oppo-

- -
nents are never at a loss for denunciation and rii

tole, but they have nothing to urge against the facts
that all their own specifics have failed to remove a

great disgrace from our English electoral system

-
that the Ballot has never been tried in Parliamentary

elections, and has therefore been condemned un

heard ; and last, but not least, that it i 3 found an

efficient protector against embarrassing relations and

undue influence in clubs, associations, and societies,

It is impossible for a man in our complicated

society to be wholly independeut of his
fellows, and even if be have no personal or cowardly

motive he may shrink from causing disappointment or
giving pain by his vote. The Ballot covers all secrets,

and enables a voter to give his vote as he conscien-
tiously thinks best, without having to pass through

an ordeal which very few men are inclined to

undergo. It is therefore highly satisfactory to find
that a great Ballot meeting is to be held at the
Arundel Hall on Friday evening, when Mr. MILNER
GIBBON is to preside, and when we hope the plan of

operations for the ensuing campaign will be definitely
settled.

What are we to do with our criminals ? This is the

question that is now being eagerly asked in all direc-
tions, and the more closely we study the details of
the subject the more fully must we be impressed with
its importance. It is of no use to mince the matter
and to put off the evil day of recognition, the crisis
is at hand, and we must prepare for it. Those wbo
may not fully appreciate the significance of the affair
will do well to peruse the comprehensive state-
ment recently furnished by Mr. FENWICK, the
Chief Constable of Chester, on the subject of
" Crime and Criminals." In this startling revelation
they may find much to awaken reflection and give
rise to regret. There is certainly no reason to doubt
the truth of the first observation that we meet with,
" The profession of crime is thoroughly established."
Further on we come to the unpleasant fact that there
are at prPsent in England and Wales 22,889 " known
thieves," and these, with the receivers of stolen goods,
and the large number that comes under the head of
" suspected persons," make a total of 112,406 per-
sons of criminal tendencies at large among us. Well
may Mr. FEIMICK exclaim, "If this army cannot be
cured, are they to be endured as at present ?" The
best way to arrive at a correct understanding of this
seeming mystery is to consider that very few of those
who are once convicted ever return to honest em-
ployment again, and the number of times that each
criminal is re-convicted and sentenced again
is amazing to the uninitiated. " Direct
aggressive action must be taken," is said
in this letter, and the force of the observation
must come Lome to all. When we realise the truth,
that the number of criminals is increasing, it seems

time to act in self-defence for the preservation of
society, and fur the maintenance of order and peace.
Scale punishments seem to present advantages, and
at any rate it is worth while to try them. Thieves
calculate the chances for or against their con-
viction with great nicety, and never " give up"
until they are actually sentenced. They know that
it is not decisive for them if they are committed for
trial, because every fourth prisoner or thereabouts is
acquitted when subjected to that ordeal. Even
when the worst has happened, the " ticket of leave"
may be looked forward to. Mr. FENWICK thinks that

it would be advisable to drop the ticket-of-leave sys-
tem, and remove„, that temptation to think lightly
of penal servitude. The supervision system
might be employed with advantage, after the
full period of the imprisonment has expired and the
ends of justice would be more fully met if a public
prosecutor were instituted. The writer of this letter
speaks with authority, and believes that many cases
are " hushed up" or " squared" from indifference or
sentiment on the part of the prosecutor, and the
ingenuity of the friends of the guilty party. If
these and other suggestions should awaken pub-
lic attention a great end will have been gained, and
it is for the interests of the nation that it should be
so. We have happily passed the time when cruelty
and oppression stained the records of our prisons, but
it is a mistake to go to the other extreme, and virtu-
ally to hold out a premium to crime through the in-
sufficiency of our restrictive laws and the inadequate
character of our punishments. When we read the
details of the proceedings at some of our cri-
minal courts, we are led to believe that the
learned authorities have forgotten that time honoured
adage Judex danznatur cum nocens absoleitu-. It has
never happened that the public mind has been roused
on any subject without some decisive result follow-
ing from it, and these handed arrays " who like
reapers descend to the harvest of crime," may be pre-
pared for the worst in earnest, for we can no longer
tolerate their unchecked :course, and must set
to work with might and main to stem the tide of an
evil, which is as the arrow that flieth by day, and the
pestilence that walketh in darkness.

WE mentioned some days ago that Mr. DUDLEY
BAXTER had written a pamphlet in order to shew
that the general election proved the wisdom of the
Conservative policy in giving household suffrage.
Since then Mr. BAXTER has written a letter to the
Times, enforcing this conclusion of his. Mr.
BAXTER is an able statist. It required a very
able one to convince the public that the Con-
servative party have profited by the Reform
Bill. During the late Parliament the organs of that
party were never weary of taunting Mr. GLADSTONE
with having converted a majority of 70 into a
minority of 40—a difference of 110 ; but now we hear
nothing of this feat; it is quietly assumed that this
majority was maintained until the end, and that all
which Mr. GLADSTONE has done has been to increase
it to 111. We might, if we chose, insist upon the first-
mentioned figures, and declare that the Liberal leader,
having lost 110 votes in the old Parliament, has in the
new not only regained them, but added another 110
to them. However, we are content to take Mr.
BAXTER'S own figures, though they over-estimate
the Liberal majority in the late and underrate that
in the present Parliament. One hundred and eleven
majority is a tolerably substantial fact. There has
been nothing like it since the Reform Bill of 183
was carried ; and if Mr. BAXTER finds comfort and
satisfaction in it we can only congratulate him on
the perfect way in which he has learnt the first half
of HORACE'S lesson—

2Equam memento rebus in arduis,
Servare mentem.
Perhaps we may some day have to congratulAe
him on fulfilling the latter half of the injunction.
It must be admitted that in this respect he and his
friends have had little opportunity of shewing their
proficiency.
Mr. BAXTER analyses the electors as well as the
elected, and here he finds an unfailing source of com-
fort. True, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales have gone
against the Conservative party, but then the party
has gained in England ; that is to say, more persons
have supported Conservative candidates on this occa-
sion than on former occasions. Mr. BAXTER appears
to have arrived at this conclusion by assuming that
where a county like Kent or Lancashire has returned
a perfect phalanx of Conservative county members,
the whole of the electors are to be reckoned as Con-
servative, even though each seat mayhave been gained
by the narrowest majority. How untenable such a
supposition is we may easily see by supposing that in
each case the Conservative candidate was returned bya
majority of one. In such a county the constituency
would be divided equally, except for an unappreciable
fraction, and yet this fraction would be sufficient to
exclude every Liberal candidate. Mr. BAXTER draws
two principal lessons from the elections : the first,
that the Conservatives were justified by the result in
passing a household suffrage bill ; the second, that
the Liberal party must be careful how they venture
to set the rest of the kingdom against England.
As to the first lesson, we can only say that
if the Conservatives had foreseen that household
suffrage would place them in a minority of 111, they
would either have swallowed the " bitter pill " with
even more wry faces than they manifested, or not at
all. If the retreat of a Conservative Cabinet without
waiting to meet the Parliament which it had elected
be a proof of the wisdom of household suffrage
from the Conservative point of view, we can

only wonder what Conservative folly must
be. The antagonism between England and
the rest of the kingdom, presuming it to be a
fact—which, moreover, we do not admit—would only
shew that in England the love for ecclesiastical
establishments had for a time induced a section of
the Liberal party to leave their ranks. They will
not be able to prevent the disestablishment of the
Irish Church. Mr. BAXTER himself admits that ;
and when this measure has been accomplished we
may expect to see the Liberal party strengthened
by the return of those men who are Liberals in all
other matters save this.

FIRE IN CHEAPSIDE-THIS DAY.

This (Wednesday) morning, at a few minutes
before four o'clock, great excitement was caused
amongst the warehousemen in Cheapside, owing
to the outbreak of a fire in the large premises num-
bered 135 in that neighbourhood. The building
was occupied by Mr. T. N. Mapleson, a cotton
agent, Mr. Hurwitz, and Mr. D. Reed, a merchant
tailor. The discovery was made by the police-
constable on duty, who, on passing along the back
of Cheapside, had his attention directed by a strong
smell of wood burning. Feeling convinced that a
fire was burning in one of the buildings, he made a
search, and in the course of a few minutes he
found flames rolling out of the back warehorse
on the first floor, which was tenanted by Mr.
Mapleson. The officer at once sounded the alarm,
and went off to Watling-street for the engines.
Captain Shaw and numerous officers of the Metro-
politan Brigade, with a full complement of firemen,
engines, and escapes, as well as the London Salvage
Corps, with Mr. Superintendent Swanston, arrived
at the seat of danger. The flames by that time bad
reached the yard, although several of the intJerme-
diate stores had not been attacked by the fire_ The
stairs, however, were in a general blaze. The mains
of the water company having been drawn a splendid
supply of water was obtained, from which a couple
of Shand, Mason, and Co.'s land steamers were set
to work, and the hose of each machine havkag been
conveyed up the stairs, the firemen were er,abled to
combat with the flames at each point, and 'they were
soon extinguished. The damage done, however,
is considerable, and is thus officially rep arted by
Captain Shaw :—" Back rooms on first -.floor and
front rooms on second floor and contents • were se-
verely damaged by fire, the stairs nearly del ;troyed,
the upper part of house and contents by hez..t and
smoke, and part of roof off. The stock in shop
slightly damaged by water and fire. insurances at
present unknown."

Mr. Whitmore, M.P. for Bridgnorth, has re-
signed the office of Conservative " Whip," to which he
was appointed by Mr. Disraeli in 1855 as successc ,r to Lord
Mandeville, now Duke of Manchester.

DUNVILLE and Co., Belfast, are the largest
holders of Whisky in the world. Their Old Irish Whh :ky is re-
commended by the medical profession in preference J French
Brandy. Supplied in casks and cases for home use or exports.
tion. Quotations on application to Messrs. Danville aa.'d Co.,
Belfast; or 4, Blaufort-buil,lings, Strand,;,Lo: vim -[Ad
vertisement.

T ffl SUN, LONDON, WCDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 13, 1869.

LATEST INTELL LGENCE.

(REUTEP.'S TELEGRAMS.)

TURKEY.

CONSTANTINOPLE, Jan. 12.

CORRESPONDENCE FROM PARIS.

!FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.'

PARIS, TUMODAY, January 12.
It is difficult for Englishmen with their political
journals, meetings, addresses by leading men, and other
means of political instruction—to form a just idea of the
utter lack of knowledge on political matters which pre-
vails throughout France. The French people, as a body,
know nothing of politics, and take a proportionately small
interest in such matters, simply because they have no
instruction. In Paris there are abundance of
newspapers, though of no very excellent descrip-
tion, and these publish restricted comments on
home affairs and the debates in the Corps L6gislatif, as
represented by the compte rendu analytique—the official
report which alone can be published. But in the country
the means of political instruction are so meagre that the
most deplorable ignorance prevails everywhere. The
journals are smaller and, in point of quality, below the
not very high standard of the Paris papers. Very many
of them are so small, and appear at such long intervals,
that they are unable to publish the comptes rendus of
the parliamentary debates. The law is inflexible; either the
the long dreary report which is drawn up by the autho-
rities must be inserted, or none at all. It cannot be
abridged or altered in any way. Hence the inhabitants
of country districts remain from week to week and month
to month without the slightest conception of what is
going on at the Corps Legislatif and the Senate. The
gleams of light which occasionally reach them are few,
unconnected, and useless. For all practical purposes they
might as well be ignorant of the existence of the Legislative
Assemblies. Surely this is not a satisfactory state of
things, even in the eyes of those who hold that the multi-
tude is better off without meddling with politics. Some
notion of what is going on in the council of the nation
ought to be open to all who choose to seek it. Now that
the opening of the session draws near an agitation is
being got up on behalf of a second and shorter
report of the debate. Those now supplied are
much too long, so much so, that if a shorter were fur-
nished even the Paris journals would publish it in pre-
ference to the other. But it is demanded, and not
unjustly; that the Government would not lose much by
furnishing two reports, so as to give the people of the
capital a choice, and to afford provincial journals an
opportunity of publishing the shorter one. The demand
is reasonable, but I have, nevertheless, very little hope
that the Government will accord. it.
I need hardly say that the Budget report has not met
with a favourable reception. No Budget under the
Emperor ever did ; and it is scarcely too much to affirm that
the time when the financial statement may meet with
approbation from any but the supporters of the Govern-
ment is yet far distant. As I said in my last, the report
is favourable in details, but the main principle of all the
Imperial statements of finance is left untouched. The
surplus is not a real surplus. It is applied to " extraor-
dinary" purposes, which are really very ordinary and
common indeed. From the ordinary Budget are left out
many items of expenditure which are put in the extraor-
dinary Budget, but which ought never to have got
there. They are regular charges, which should be
included in the ordinary Budget. Th;s expedient, of
course, greatly lightened the ordinary Budget, so as to
leave a surplus. But this is by no means applied to the
reduction of taxation. It goes towards the extraordinary
Budget, which invariably converts the surplus into a
deficit ; instead of having so much to spare, the
Government is always obliged to borrow so much.
In spite of the unquestionable ability and care with which
this report is drawn up, the absence of affectation, and
even the candour of M. Magnes confession that the
finances were not al they should be, the reception of the

Further particulars have been published of the
capture of the Cretan Insurrectionary Government,
after a fight resulting in the death of four of their
members. Their archives fell into the hands of the
military, and are said to contain a highly compro-
mising correspondence.

new financial statement was very cold. It is, in fact,
simply the old story, and it excites neither admiration
nor surprise.

It is now feared that the Marquis de Moustier will not
quit the Foreign Alinistry alive. He is said to have
recovered a little, but the rally, I am informed, is both
slight and temporary. The medical men have abandoned
hope, though, happily, they sometimes do this too soon.

Of course there is no thought of removing the invalid.
Your readers will remember the case about the Exhi
bition chairs. It has again made its'appearance in a court

of justice.

At the former trial the Imperial Corn

mission which had granted M. Bernard a monopoly

of chair•letting at the Exhibition, but which after•

wards allowed the proprietors of cafes to place seats
outside their establishments, was condemned in damages

of £9,160 and costs. The Imperial. Court reduced this

sum to £4,800 and costs. Another suit tried in the
Imperial Court also dates back to the time of the Exhi-

bition. This was brought by Blondin, who was
then performing at the Park of Asnieres, against

M. Arnault, director of the Hippodrome, who had

brought out a rival tight-rope dancer under the same de-
nomination. Iu fact, the name does not belong to either

of the men, that of the hero of the Niagara Falls being
Gravelet, and of the pretender, Corelly. The tribunal

first applied to, however, considering that the former had

acquired a certain notoriety in different countries under
the appellation in question, and that Arnault, in an-
nouncing the appearance of Cerelly as Blondin, was com-

mating an act of unfair competition, had condemned him
by default to pay Gravelet £4OO as damages. On a fresh
trial the sum was reduced to £2O. Arnault again appealed,

but the Imperial Court now confirmed that decision, and
condemned the director of the Hippodrome in the payment
of all costs. The real Blondin has therefore come off vic-
torious at the third trial. He does not get much in
damages, but the costs will doubtless give him a poor sort
of satisfaction.

M. Rouher's daughter is to be married to M. Edouard
Andre, Deputy Von Gard. It vill be a pompous affair,
I understand.

MORE WAR SYMPTOMS.

On Monday the French Moniteur de 1 'Armee declared
that France was so well prepared she did not fear war,
though she desired peace. The statement in the
organ of the French army derives confirmation from
the Independant of the strongly fortified town of Metz. It
says : "Are we at war? For the lust week the military
aspect of our streets has been extraordinary. We see
continual movements of troops and long processrons
of waggons_laden with munitions and barrels of powder."
We read in the Courrier de Bourges :—" Orders have
arrived at the pyrotechnic establishment here to complete
with all speed a number of rifles to be sent to Marseilles.
Upwards of 4,000,000 cartridges for the new Chassepots
are already packed up, and ready to be sent by rail
on the first signal, and still the manufacture of cart-
ridges goes on with unremitting activity." A letter
from Bucharest, in the I)(bats, says :—" The eagerness
of the Roumain Government to manufacture war material
allows the supposition that it is preparing for speedy
action. At this moment at least 50,000 cartridges are
being made per day. The purchase of arms is also
being continued, and on a very large scale. Besides
the needle guns from the Prussian factories and
the Belgian percussion muskets, a large number of
Peabody rifles have been ordered in America. Two arri-
vals of them are expected ; the first of 10,000 and the
second of 12,000. Moreover, the old muskets have been
transformed into breech-loaders ; the Government, there-
fore, can dispose of a very considerable number of weapons.
If these armaments are continued at the - same rate,
Roumania will soon become the arsenal for the whole
East."

A melancholy accident has just occurred at Ade-
laide Colliery, near Sheldon, by which two brotherd were killed
Whilst standing side by side, a large stone, some tons
weight, fell upon them, killing both on the Tot. The eldest,
Thos. Pratt, aged about 30, leaves a wife and three children ;
the younger, George, has been recently married. It may be
mentioned that the father of the deceased and a man named
White were killed in a similar manner at Eldon Colliery,
28 years ago. Another brother was killed at Inkerman, the
whole of the family having thus met their deaths by ac-
cident.

It is stated by the Western Daily Press that the
behaviour of Bisgrove since his respite has tended to
• ...

justify the discretion exercised by the Home Secretary in
intervening between the convict and the hangman. There
has been a renewal of the epileptic fits which he has for
some time past suffered from. As has been the case in
other instances, each attack seems to weaken the control
which his not over-strong mental powers have over his
passions and impulses. It has even leaked out that but for
the unremitting watchfulness of the gaol authorities he
would havo himself terminated his own miserable existence.

It will probably be some question with the authorities
whether he can continue to be treated as a sane prisoner

The trials arising out of the Bristol election riots
:lave commenced before the Bristol Recorder. Yesterday
William Theodore Pitt WatkinFt, a solicitor, and John
Cunningham and George Lawrence, were indicted for
having been engaged in a riot, and also for damag-
ing property. The defendants all pleaded not guilty.
Mr. Ribton, in stating the case, said that the lith Novem-
ber being the polling day at Bristol thorn was great anxiety
manifested to induce voters to poll early. In the course of
the day, at somewhere between eleven and twelve o'clock,
a riotous mob collected in the neighbourhood of Col-
lege-green, and afterwards did considerable damage,
attacking among other places the Conservative committee-
room. Mr. Watkins was, it was said, present on horseback,
and incited the rioters. Several witnesses were caUed lu
support of the prosecution, some of whom spoke to Idr.
Watkins' presence at the attack on the commbtee-roem,
but some important discrepancies in tlio_ ovldonce wcrolttl(l
lay Py MF,§ergtztpt pajlant*..