The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-07 00:00:00

111.1111cE7 S-2 lIIS D.! i •

LIVERPOOL COTTON MARKET.
Sept. 7.—Sales probably 5,090 bgles! T 4!) market
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13PIRIT OF

THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times examines the details of Dr. Lankester's
Annual Report of the Inquests held in Central Middle-
sex, which number over twelve hundred in the twelve
mouths. It is difficult to make any absolute classification
in a matter like this; the different classes have a ten.
dency to overlap and melt into each other. For example,
thirty-one deaths are ranked by themselves under a head
now first introduced by Dr. Lankester as results of
" excessive drinking ;" but he remarks that many so-
called accidental deaths are in truth due to intoxication,
and that a large number even of suicides are traceable
to the condition of the brain which is brought on by in-
dulgence in that fatal habit. Probably a stricter analysis
would show that the deaths assigned simply to natural
causes ought in the same way to pay toll to the column
of deaths from drinking ; and deaths from natural causes
might, we fear, have their majority further diminished
were the cases in which violence and accident are, if not
the direct, at least predisposing causes of the maladies
which terminate fatally, capable of being estimated. The
mortality, again, consequent on drunkenness has
roots in moral and social defects which
must be cured, if at all, by the gradual process of
• education. Infanticide, which is represented rather
less largely than usual, but still far too largely, in Dr.
Lankester's annual register, springs from a combination of
crime and immorality, and needs the same specifics as
they for its treatment. But the average of deaths from
accidents is an effect of snore superficial causes, and which
might be brought in some measure within control. Even
the deaths from natural causes are more or less amenable
to human control and susceptible of diminution by a
diminution in the crime, vice, ignorance, and
carelessness which Dr. Laukester accuses of being
the principal feeders of his court. The efforts now
being made by the sect denounced by Dr. Lankester
as anti-vaccination fanatics indicate the extent to which
ignorance is related even to the ordinary agencies by
which life is shortened. A belief like theirs, based half
on a blind instinct of resistance to authority and half on
superstition, may, as Dr. Lankester warns us, in a few
years prepare a terrible harvest for smallpox. Flaws, if
any, in the orthodox theory, cannot be removed too
speedily. It is late in the day to defend the principle of
vaccination itself ; but it should be considered whether
there is any room for improvement in the process of ad-
ministering it to the poorer classes.
The Standard says that the Highlands of Scotland are
holding high festival. There is an almost unprecedented
combination of great doings on the part of "liege and
lord," and the gathering of Braemar has been more than
equalled by the visit of the sovereign herself to the Tros-
sachs. If the Prince of Wales, the Prince and the Prin-
cess Christian, and Prince Leopold have been the guests
of the Earl of Fife, Mr. Stewart Macnaughten, the pro-
prietor of Invertrossachs, may boast of being the enter-
tainer of her Majesty. The scenery, in the very heart
of which the Queen is now staying, may be said
to be almost as familiar to the great bulk of her subjects
as it is to the royal author of the " Iligbland Diary," and
in exploring its beauties at the present time the Sovereign
is but taking a leaf out of her people's book. We in Lon.
don are accustomed, and rightly so, to pride ourselves
upon the healthfulness and the beauty of our metropo-
litan pleasure-grounds. But it must be confessed that the
advantages which we possess in this direction are alto-
gether surpassed by those whose lot is cast on the north
side of the Tweed. What Gravesend or Southend,
Hampton Court or Bushey Park, are to the
inhabitants of London, that the Trossachs, Loch
Katrine, and Loch Lomond may without exag-
geration be said to be to the inhabitants of Edinburgh.
At present there must be another interest than the purely
historical or romantic lent to the spots which her Majesty
is exploring—an interest of a vastly different and a
melancholy kind. It is not the first time that the sovereign
has visited these haunts ; but whereas on former occasions
it was as a wife with her husband, it is now as a widow.
Every inch of the ground which she daily travels over, as
Mr. Macnaughten's guest, she has described to us in the
Highland journal which was written when her Royal
Consort lived ; and it was the publication of that journal
which more and more endeared her Majesty 0 every hearth
and home in Great Britain.

The Post thinks that the country is sufficiently informed
now of the modes by which a representation of the
opinions of the people is got together within the walls of
the House of Commons, of the grounds on which the
franchise is valued, and of the influences which bring a
large proportion of its poasessors up to the poll to record
their votes. It can hardly be necessary to continue
any longer the system of inquiry by what is
called a Commission. There are many and grave
objections to this mode of procedure. The whole of the
proceedings in the instances of Norwich, Bridgewater,
and Beverley show to what an extent the inquiry, which
is intended to purify, demoralises the constituency to
-which it is applied. Is it to be supposed that such people
as these will be reformed in their views or changed
in their modes of action by wholesale disfranchise-
ment? Suppose it should be determined to hang
tip Norwich, and Beverley, and Bridgewater as
scarecrows in the electoral field—what then ? Will
that process purify other constituencies? Not one whit.
The experiment has been often made, and corruption by
money has just as much influence and is as much
resorted to as it was before Commissioners patted revela-
tions on the back, and Parliament visited on entire con-
stituencies the sins which it had foolishly, if not corruptly,
condoned in individuals. Let us try some mode more
creditable to law and justice, and more useful to the
interests of the public morality.
The Daily News declares that for any religious influence
they exert, for any Church work they do, the cathedrals
might just as well not exist ; the buildings are splendid
failures, and the revenues are wasted. Dean Alford dis-
tinctly sees that in these days neither the Church nor
the nation can afford this waste, and he therefore comes
out with a proposal for Cathedral Reform. Not that the
Dean is at all a candidate for disestablishment and dis-
endowment ; on the contrary, he defends his position,
and merely demands to he made of use. His method
of reform, proceeds on the assumption that there
is a work for cathedrals to do, an useful function for them
to perform. Dean Alford would not abolish deans,
though some of the bishops have proposed to do so, and
the only argument of the Bishop of Carlisle against it was,
that " if the office of bishop and dean were united, it
would be a confession that one of them is unnecessary."
Dean Alford would make the dean the incumbent of the
cathedral church, subject only to the bishop and next in
dignity to him. Next to the dean should be the two
archdeacons, both occupying canonries, and together with
the dean superintending, the daily service. The
Canons should be members of the diocesan clergy, all
equal in rank, with no salaries attached to their office,
but a liberal remuneration for work done at the cathedral
in virtue of that office. In principle the suggestion
involves a reform of all the cathedrals, and it is a signifi-
cant and encouraging fact that the scheme is not merely a
product of the Dean's literary aefieity, but that it has
been elaborated by him, and seat in answer to a circular
from the two Archbishops, asking for suggestions for
cathedral reform, and is made public by their permission.
The Herald remarks that in France, in Belgium, in
Italy, in Germany, the Roman Catholic clergy have
endeavoured to monopolise the education of youth ; in
every one of these countries the State, whether governed
by an intelligent despot or a free Parliament, has inter-
posed, and taken the education of the people into its own
hands, mainly in order to save it from the clergy. And in
every case public opinion—especially the opinion of the
educated classes—is against the clerical, and in-favour of
the State system. • Cardinal Cullen has actually dared to
order that the Sacraments shall be refused to all parents
whose children accept the education offered them b 3
the Imperial Government. In no other country in
Europr., democratic or oligarchic, Protestant or Roman
Catholic, would so outrageous an insult to the State be
tolerated for an instant. And such examples of oppression
towards individuals, and disloyalty to the Government,
do force upon thoughtful men a veryserious doubt Whether
the principle of non-intervention may not be carried too
far ; whether, considering the enormous power wielded by
the clergy of the Burnish Church, it is altogether right or
safe for the State to leave that power, without check or
control, to be exercised at the will of bad or intemperate
men for bad or questionable purposes, to be made an
engine sometimes of extortion, sf,m,time, of personal
vindictiveness, sometimes of party spirit, sometimes, as
in the present instance, of obstinate resistance to public
policy and cruel tyranny over thousanda of faluilis. In
Roman Catholic countries the State has no scruples
about restraining the abuse of so tremendous a power—is
it necessary that a Protestant Covernment should allow
to the Rom's!' priest, a license which Roman Catholic
rulers deem intolerable, or that we affect,
scruples about interfering with the religions rights of
1 I
the Church which her own children clearly do not ent er-
tein ?

The Star observes that the difficulty in the way either
of suppression or inspection of monastic institutions, lies
first of all in the definition of them, and secondly in the
discovery of them. If the definition is too narrow, it will
easily be evaded ; if too wide, it will be intolerable
interference, with thv liberty of the subject. The
law must in any case be made applicable, alike to all
sects, and if the Protestant Alliance gains power to
walk into a Catholic ntleman's or lady's private room,
in order to inquire if thoere is anybody who would like to
escape, it must give erpial authority to a Callao zealot
to walk into 'lambed' Palace to ascertain that the Arch-
bishop of Canter:Hwy has, not put his housemaids in irons.
The true remedy for any such possible restraint will, we
think, be found in the general knowledge that it
is wholly illegal, and that so much as a rumour
of detention would set in force ample powers of
the law to annul it. It may, perhaps, be open
to consideration whether the law at present affords suffii-
eient facilities to procure a judical investigation when
there is reasonable ground to suspect constraint. Perhaps
a magistrate's powers in this respect might be enlarged or
simplified. But beyond this it is impossible to go, for if
people will agree to live together nobody can prevent
them, and if one man or woman oppresses another, the
law can do nothing more than promise a hearing U a cry
for help is heard. _ •