The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-23 00:00:00

Commence at 7.

ROYAL PRINCESS'S THEATRE.-
Lessee, Mr. A. Harris.
THIS EVENING. to commence with the favourite comedy
Of LONDON ASSURANCE.
And TWICE KILLED.
Followed by A PRINCE FOR AN HOUR.

W THEATRE - ROYAL, AD ELPHL
Sole Proprietor and Manager. Mr. Benj. Webster.

THIS EVENING, ICI ON PARLE FRANCAIS. Mr. J.
L. Toole, Chas. Selby, Billington,•3lrs. Chatterley, Mrs. Bil-
lington, Miss Kate Kelly, and Laidlaw.

After which, THE JEALOUS WIFE. Messrs. Alfred
Wigan, Toole, Selby, Billing.f,ton ; Mrs. A. Wigan, Mrs. Chat-
terly.

Followed by LOVE AND HUNGER. Mr. David Fisher,
Mr. Paul Bedford, C. Selby, C. J. Smith, Miss K. Kelly, Miss
Laidlaw.

Doors open at half-past six—Commence at seven. Box-
Office open from 10 to 5. No charge for securing seats,
nor for bills of performance. All fees to servants of this
establishment are strictly prohibited.

Acting Manager—Mr. Wm. Smith.

lOYAL ST. JAMES'S THEATRE,
4.) Rind-street, St. James's. Lessee, Mr. T. B. Chaffer-
ton. Directress, Miss Wyndham. The nearest Theatre to
Chelsea, Pimlico, and Westminster, the Park being open to
Carriages and foot passengers all hours of the night.
THIS EVENING the performances will commence with
"No. 49."

Followed by BLACK-EYED SUSAN.
After which, MAGIC TOYS. Miss Lydia Thompson and
Miss Clara St. Casse.

After which the successful burlesque of DIDO. Mesdames
Wyndham, Clara St. Casse, Eliza Arden, and Mr Charles
Young.

Reduced Prices—Gallery, 6d ; Pit, Ig. The Box-oflice open
from 11 to 5 daily. Doors open at half-past six; perform
anoe commences at 7.

ASTLEY'S ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE.-
Proprietor, Mr. Wm. BATTY.—In announcing the RE-
OPENING on EASTER MONDAY, April 9, of this far-famed
Amphitheatre, again under his own management, Mr. Batty
feels proud in calling to mind the widely extended and flatter-
ing patronage, including even that of her most gracious Ma-
jesty the QUEEN ; and which patronage, during his former
period of catering for the public amusement, was at all times
so lavishly bestowed. During the recess the interior of the
Amphitheatre has been entirely redecorated and embellished,
and surrounded with costly and unique Lustres, and a new
gigantic and most beautiful Centre CRYSTAL CIIANDELIER,
manufactured by Defiles and Son, of Houndsditch. The whole
energy of the proprietor has been directed to gathering to-
gether, in one body, CELEBRITIES both Dramatic and Eques-
trian, who have each achieved success. He has not hesitated
to expend immense labour and capital in its accomplishment,
and looks, with hope, for the fullest patronage of the public.
..* In active preparation, a New Grand Military Spectacle,
founded upon the French Drama, "Llllistoire d'un Drapean"
(now performing, with great success, in Paris), and entitled—
" THE HISTORY OF A FLAG."

CANTERBUR Y HALL CONCERTS,
THIS EVENING, .
LUCEEZIA BORGIA,
(Donizetti).

Donna Lucreala Miss Russell.
Halo Orsini Mrs. Anderson.
Gennaro Mr. Henry Herbert.
Don Alfonso Signor Tivoli.
Conductor—Mr. Jonghmans.
Comic Vocalists —Messrs. George Hodson (the Trish Come-
dian and Mimic), W. T. Critchfield, and E. W. hackney.
Several interesting Pictures are added to the Fine Arts
Gallery. The suite of Halls have been re-decorated and
eautified. and constitute one of the most unique and brilliant
sights of the metropolis.
The gallery is open from 5 till 11 on Sunday Evening.

THE WEATHER.--Sux OFFICE, MAUCH 23, 1860,

THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
50—highest since noon yesterday.
42—lowest this morning and during the night.
48—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-29.50.
WIND, South-Westerly ; fresh, and cloudy, with passing
showers. It must be stormy in the Channel.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAY.—Morning, 2h. 33m.—Afternoon, 2h. 47m,
To-moßßow.-Morning, 3h. lm.—Afternoon, 3h. 16m,

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THE SUN.
LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 1860.

Last night the Reform Bill was heaved through
another debate ; why it should have been left till
Monday to be subjected to a repetition of the pro-
cess we can hardly conceive. We had the other
day to describe in our columns a wringing and
washing machine; the merit of its performance in
regard to the former operation was that by one
passage through the rollers all the water was got
out of the linen, and the fabric left dry. We are
quite sure that passing through one debate squeezed
almost all the interest out of the Reform Bill, and
last night brought out hardly a single drop more.
We glance impatiently through the speeches, and
find nothing but the old objections and the old
answers. One side saying there is no clamour for
a bill, the other making answer that a quiet politi-
cal season is just the time to discuss so grave a
business as amending our representation. One

party telling us that the old electors are to be

swamped by a vast homogeneous constituency of.six-
pounders, the other trying to prove that the addition
to the electors will be much smaller than is stated,
and that the classes lying between £6 and £lO
rentals are the very aristocracy of working men.
Mr. MassEv got very warm over the wrongs of
Salford. He acknowledged that the proposals for
augmenting the franchise were not so bad, but the
re-distribution of seats, he thought, a miserable
failure. Salford still had but one member. He
singly had to attend to the Parliamentary affairs
of 100,000 people, whose increase only of electors
since the Reform Bill exceeded the entire electors,
of four little favourite boroughs of Lord JOHN, in-
cluding the Bedford boroughs of Tavistock and
Wycombe. What will Lord JOHN say to the in-
discretion of naming Bedford nomination boroughs
for disfranchisement, and that, too, in order to sup-
ply independent constituencies like Salford with
another member ? Mr. MASSEY would have pre-
ferred that the re-distribution of seats had been
left untouched for another bill. We differ from
him in that. If we could get only a pair of
Seats more honestly allotted in any bill
we would take them. Never refuse money—is a
good maxim in business; and never refuse conces-
sion of a right, however small, is a good maxim in
politics. Mr. MASSEY need not fear that changing
twenty-five; seats will settle that part of the ques-
tion. Indeed, to do him justice, he argues that it
cannot, but that he shall, very reluctantly, be
obliged to turn agitator for further reforms.
If any contribution of worth was made last even-
ing in the course of the debate, it was by Mr.
BAINES. Nearly all the rest of the speaking was
simply party speaking ; but Mr. BAINES fur-
nished som; facts which do aid us in seeing the
probable working of the bill. He had ap-
plied to the Treasurer of the Borough of
Leeds, who by the aid of an experienced rent col-

pose."

In all this we get a pcep at facts ; and they are,
we must confess, more in favour of the working
of the new franchise, so far as these vast manufac-
turing towns are concerned, than we had ventured
to anticipate. We all wish the better class of
workmen to have a vote: In Leeds they will have
it—will have it in no outrageous disproportion; and
all will go on there, doubtless, much as before.
When a Liberal like Mr. BAINES, a dissenter, but of
the thoroughly Whig school, seems to have no fear
for his seat, and after careful investigation of the
facts on the spot, not to have the least feeling that
the £6 franchise is too radical, we think we may
venture to console all the Whig Liberals, who
somewhat quake for theirposition in the large towns.
A few of them may have to MOTO on a little—to accept
the Ballot for instance, if they have hitherto op-
posed it, and that will be all. The entire propor-
tion of non-electors to the old cannot be, it appears,
such as to " swamp" the latter. Under this Bill
the registered electors in boroughs will be about
607,000. Well, this is just about the number of
adult males of the upper and middle classes in our
boroughs. Again supposing the operative classes
admitted by the bill to amount to 120,000 or at
most to 150,000, that would make them but
one-fourth of the electoral constituency—a propor-
tion which, considering their vast number, cannot
surely be thought large. On whichever side we
view the extension, we can see no cause for alarm
on the part of the most timid. Of course, for our-
selves, we never had any. We have the fullest faith
in the principle that to make men quiet, contented,
loyal citizens, nothing is so effectual as to grant them
equal civil and political privileges. Working men,
like all other men, have honest, loyal English
hearts in the main ; and our safest reliance is not
on unjust exclusions, which fret them, but on the
confidence which begets confidence.

A more ludicrous illustration of the absurdities
to which a false principle may lead grave and
learned men, can hardly, perhaps, be found than in
the " grievance" attacked last Wednesday by Mr.
DILWYN, and defended by the Government agent
for such business, Mr. LOWE—the Right Honour-
able R. LOWE we ought to say —he who has
prudently escaped from the stones and brick-
bats of Kidderminster, to nestle senatori•
ally in the arms of Lord LANSDOWNE,
at Calne. The amusing thing is, that in this blessed
era of" light and knowledge," the Courts of Law,
and pre-eminently the Court of ChanCery, know of
no religion in the land but that of the Prayer-book
and Articles. Roman Catholic cathedrals and
chapels cover Ireland and are common enough hero.
Wesleyans of four or five kinds proclaim on large
stone buildings, that they worship there according
to JOHN WESLEY and "the Conference." Baptists,
Independents, and we know not how many less
numerous bodies of persons, have erected in every
town, and almost village, buildings which every
passer-by knows to be appropriated to nothing but
the worship of GOD; and, lastly, the irrefutable
census tells us that the majority of the worship-
pers of the country worship in these buildings—
buildings in which the reading of the prayers and
the articles is never heard. Yet grave and
learned men sitting on the seat of justice declare
that they know nothing of all this religion ! It
may be religion, for aught they can tell, the religion
possibly of the greater number, but it is religion
unknown to law. No judge can take account of it.
As religious men, from Roman Catholics to Quakers,
the worshippers in these buildings have no more
existence than slaves have as men at all, in the
law of the United States. As the poor slaves
there are chattels, not men ; so all non-conformists
are men, indeed, but not religious men ; they may
have a creed and worship, but they have legally no

religion.
This pleasant little bit of legal drollery, which
one would suppose to be merely an obsolete
quip or quirk of courts at the present day, is
however, credite posteri, paraded before the
Houses of Parliament as real wisdom ! Judges
do really act upon it. Not long ago they decreed
that some Dissenting trustees must be removed
from the trusts of the Ilminster Grammar School,
because in law Dissenters could not be " godly and
religious persons." Many of their neighbours are
apt to think their only fault in this respect to be
that of being religious overmuch, But the Judges
held that they could not, in this age of the law,
taea
be religious at all ; and, as the deeds required
the trustees to be
so, w thehy
is Dbieststeenrti
ohg ana trusteesd
lion,"m ust baunddg e
a C
;
"haurelm
livingt dog
Churchman, though a drunkard, is
legally more religious than the Dissenting tee-
totaller. To men of plain common sense so absurd
seemed the rule of Chancery law which the Judges
pleaded, that it was thought Judges, and Lords,
and Commons, and every one, would be glad enough
to establish some community between law
and fact,—between the rules of law, and
the rules of daily life. The subject was,
however, brought before the Commons
last session, when, by means we need not detail, the
lawyers contrived t 9 bewilder the House of Com-
mons, and to send to the Lords a bill which the
Lords rejected at Once. The Lords have sent one
down to the Commons this year, which simply pro-
poses to enable trustees to permit children of Dis-
senters to be taught in grammar schools, without
being compelled to learn what is offensive to their
parents. Mr. DILWYN'S bill, which was rejected
on "Wednesday, takes a wider sweep. It pro-
ceeds on the principle that where the foun-
dation deeds of the school prescribe no par-
creed, no person shall be excluded

Leular

lector, had ascertained the quality of the additions
likely to be made by the bill to the Leeds electoral
registry. We should have thought Leeds would
be an unfavourable specimen of the classes who
.would obtain votes. We mean that the new fran-
chise must there, if anywhere, introduce a large
number of persons of the lower sections of the
working classes. It appears to be just the reverse.
The constituency is now 6,ooo—it will be increased
by 4,000, of whom 2,500 will be strictly of the
operative class ;—but, adds the treasurer, " these,
you will please to observe, are the most intelligent
and best skilled workinen of their class." The infor-
mation forwarded to Mr. BAINES went into details,
and enumerated, under schedules, the trades of the
persons to whom it is proposed to give the franchise.
" Three schedules," he observed, " relating to these
persons were furnished. The first included those
who occupied houses of from. £6 to £7. The trades
to which the persons included in ft belonged indi-
cated that there would be extreme difficulty in
their organisation for any common political pur-
poses. There were cloth-dressers, dyers, mechanics
of various kinds, masons, bricklayers, plasterers,
and joiners. The. second schedule included persons
who paid from £7 to £B, and there were to be
found cloth-pressers, warehousemen, iron and
bran moulders, brushmakers, wood-turners, cur-
riers, and leather-dressers, and so on. In the third
schedule, which comprised houses from £8 to £lO,
were retail shopkeepers of all kinds, bookeepers
and assistant clerks, and printers. These facts
would, he hoped, satisfy those wherthought that
the new electors were such a homogeneous class
that they might be combined for any political pur-