The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-09 00:00:00

WESTMINSTER.

SYSTEMATIC PLUNDER OF A MASTER.—Robert Wellsby,
barman, and Harriett Small were charged, the former with
stealing three bottles of brandy, rum, and gin, the goods
of George Edmonds, his master, and the latter in receiving
them, well knowing them to have boon stolen.
Prosecutor keeps the " Stanley Arms" in Westmorland-
street, Pimlico, and prisoner had been in her service ten
days as barman; the takings fell short, and prose-
cutor missed money and stock. A. plain clothes con-
stable, named O'Brien, 50 B, went into the house
at seven o'clock this morning and saw the female enter.
She gave the man three empty bottles, and he gave her
three in return full of spirits, and something else; the
spirits, with somo dirty clothes, were put into a bag and
taken away by the woman, who was followed to the sta-
tion-house door and then taken into custody.
The male prisoner pleaded guilty, and endeavoured to
absolve the woman from blame, to this the prosecutor
added a recommendation to mercy.
Mr. Salfe said he could not settle the matter, and com-
mitted them both for trial, stating that he would take
good bail in £2O for her appearance at the sessions.

211 E SURRENDER OF GIBRALTAR.

----.0.--.,_,

One independency we have given up within recent
remembrance. A goodly cluster of islands, it con-
sisted of :—Cephalonia, Z trite, St. Maura, Corfu,
Ithaca, Cerigo, what not; we hauled them all over
for absorption into Greece. Gibraltar is sorely
wanted, just now, to be done the like with
by the Spanish—which is it?—Monarchial or
Republican Government. Suppose we meekly
do by that to-day as we did by the lonian
Islands yesterday ? Suppose we spike our
guns—sneak across to Ceuta—and abandon for
once and for all that grand 01l trophy won by
our arms, our gold, and our blood ; that grim
guardian of our road to India ; that one rocky
Pillar of Hercules, from the height of which our
garrison, like warders on the keep, have held watch
for 100 years at the entrance of the Mediterranean.
Supposing we do all this, in the natue of honesty
let us go a step or two further. Let us at
least be consistent. Let us deal with one after
another of our various colonial possessions precisely
in like manner. The arguments applicable to the
lonian Islands, the arguments said to be applicable
now to the hitherto thought-to-be impregnable rock
of Gibraltar, are applicable equally to all the rest of
our dominions. There was professor Gold win Smith
only a few years ago outraging all our feelings of
patriotism, all the most cherished among our na
tional susceptibilities, proposing that, in plain terms,
England—this " dear, dear England" of Shakspere,
not of Smith—should cave in at once without any
more ado, should strip herself of all her world-wide
territories, should take the sacred fasces and de-
liberately unbind them, to the end of, first of
all, distributing the rods of empire, and after-
wards, we may presume, submitting herself
allegorically to decapitation by the axe. If
we are going to give up Gibraltar, why not
recall at once this wretched Professor Smith and
install him permanently in Downing-street as our
Disintegrating Minister or Lord Paramount ?
Against the advent of the Smithian Era, we possess
happily at this moment, however, one—if only
for that reason—most acceptable guarantee. We
have installed here already at the Colonial-office
at that mystical centre of the vast and compli-
cated network of our colonial system—a Minister,
who, like the majority of his illustrious predecessors
in that most distinguished and responsible office,
cherishes, we believe, very dearly at heart the glory
of the Crown and the honour of the country, and is
himself in his very heart of hearts a thorough,
downright Englishman.—The Gladstone Govern-
, meat, by a Templar.