The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-06 00:00:00

BR IT OP THE PDBLIO JOURNAL%

The TiMei is glad to believe that Ireland is calmer. The
vet,gistrates of Limerick and of Cork have issued procia-
ations, and the turbulent waves are at once appeased.
The managers are uncertain whether they have not gone
ileo far. The Fenian prints assume a comparatively mode-
rate tone. They discuss the evils which would befall
Ireland should the Habeas Corpus Act be suspended once
more, although one with unnecessary protestations declares
tit the warrant of the Lord-Lieutenant would find its
editor a't his desk. In the end they advise prudence, dis-
countenance the proposals for multiplying "convict" can-
didates for parliamentary vacancies, and affirm that they
&Aire nothing but the continued use of Constitutional
Authority had but to manifest itself for a moment
in Ireland, and the licence of disaffection was immediately
ch;:cked, and thereupon the question has been raised
whether there was any necessity to appeal to authority at
all. A stranger deduction was never made from similar
pnmises. The true conclusion which must, as we think,
he drawn by all reasonable men is just the reverse of this.
'What has happened not only fully justifies the resolution
to cause the law to be respected, but presents an invin-
cible argument for abiding by it. If there were any
danger, as, happily, we believe there is not, that the teeth
once shown the watch-dog would lie down to sleep, the end
world be worse than the beginning, and Fenianism would
be more rampant than ever. We must go on as we have
begun, neither abating the scope and thoroughness of our
measures of reform, nor receding in any degree from our
resolution to maintain the peace undiminished. The
Ministers of the Crown must remember that they wield
the Sword of Justice, and that to them is committed the
direction of the armed hand of the nation for the repres-
sion of disorder within its borders.

me an,s.

The Herald asks, where is the use of Cardinal Cullen's
fulminations against the Fenians ? Time was when the
Roman Catholic Church might have done good service in
bringing its spiritual influence to bear against Fenianism,
but the opportunity has been lost, and while the con-
spirators mock at the denunciations of Rome, they
count their secret adherents in every congregation. The
Church has no longer any power to frighten them.
On the contrary, when her ministers come in conflict
with them they usually get the worst of it. Have
we not heard recently of priests being chased through
the streets by these ruffians, and the people looking
on indifferently ? If Cardinal Cullen is as zealous for the
ca-rse of order as he affects to be, let him direct his
censures against the lawless and turbulent priests who
beve been making themselves so conspicuous recently.
We have lately found Roman Catholic ministers ex-
pressing sentiments as atrocious as any that have over been
imputed to the Fenians. It was a priest who quoted
approvingly the suggestion that landlords enforcing their
rights should be shot down "like mad dogs," and it was
alto a priest who gave jocular counsel as to the best and
quietest way of "tumbling" a landlord. Roman
Catholic priests might be quoted by the score who
have publicly given utterance to the most abominable
sentiments, even to going the length of exciting to murder
and assassination. Yet in not one single instance have we
heard of the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church
calling these turbulent priests, these apostles of treason,
these missionaries of the revolver, to order. Let Cardinal
Callen cease from his noisy and fruitless denunciation of
Fenianism, and attend to his proper business of restraining
and punishing the disgraceful excesses of his own clergy.
S',ciety has too long been affronted by the scandal of the
ministers of a religion of peace preaching the gospel of
murder and sedition.

The Post remarks that no minute or manifesto issued
from the Poor-law Board since 1848 has caused half the

consternation amongst the well-seasoned guardians of the
poor that the recent letter of Mr. Goschen has effected.
The third paragraph of that letter lays down as "one of
the most recognised principles of our poor law that relief
should be given only to the actually destitute, and not in
aid of wages," in which, is we proceed, " earnings " are
Inlluded generally. The first step towards the end aimed
it by the President of the Poor-law Board is that which
that Board ought to have taken boldly and fearlessly years
ago—if they have come to any such conclusion as the letter
snnounces—viz., to have defined the law and vindicated it.
Then, indeed, the administrators of public charities and
benevolences could have had no choice but to enter into
communion with the guardians of the poor and their
tesponsible head. The evil has been that hitherto all such
connection as that recommended has been studiously
tiscouraged, save on some rare and exceptional occa-
sion, and even tho possession of a voluntary
Sc.maritan fund for the relief of such distress as
the practice of boards ignored has been discountenanced.
A. sort of antagonism has been fostered between the distri-
butors of charities and the administrators of parochial
-elief, and the former have too often deemed it a point of
hnnour or of goodness to elude the guardians' vigilance.
The first requisite is for the Poor-law Board to base its own
lotion on practical and systematic rules, and, when they
'rime proved their sincerity and administrative ability in
this, they will have acquired some title to ask the confi-
Unce of other and independent bodies.

The Telegraph refers to the ewe of Mary. Ann Harris, at
Wolverhampton, and thinks that painful feeling is excited,
e ith just cause, for the poor little children who are
3Kposed to such a fate. Without thinking of what might
11.,ve happened when Mary Ann Harris was a few years
order, in the midst of what suffering these four years of
ser life must have been spent She was not alone in
Zer misery. At one time she was among four
children travelling about with the itinerant Swede.
?Co doubt she waa treated and considered as an
infant prodigy ; but the thoughtless spectators do not
lonsider the cuffing, and kicking, and starvation that
t-iter into the composition of these little "wonders." It
Is not without a very sufficient training that the juggler's
little boy—one of those thin, sallow children in dirty
tights—has arrived at his present proficiency in the art of
throwing summersaults, and of placing himself on the
apex of a human pyramid to -which his big rough father
serves as base. Infant Prodigies, taking them at
their best, when trained by their own parents and
exhibited in drawing-rooms and marble halls, are
but so many examples of infant suffering. What
Must it be when they have been brought up by a
pandering speculator, who regards them just as he
would a performing canary or a military monkey? The
elild was clever, else Wolff would not have been so
Sulieus to keep her. She was cruelly used, else she would
tot have flown for protection to the two gentlemen at
Wolverhampton. Surely, one of the most pathetic figures
ln modern painting is the little juggler's boy in Mr. Frith's
$` Derby Day," who ought to be tumbling in some wonder-
ful way, but has just caught sight of the fragment of the
lobster, and other Derby dainties, and has paused to look
at them with such wistful and hungry eyes.
The Daily News says that one of the first signs of the
bear approach of Christmas is the annual Cattle Show of

the Smithfield. Club. The tendency to make the great
winter festival a feast of fat things is far older than the
threescore years and eleven of the Smithfield Club Cattle
show, but the immense success of that yearly exhibition
of animal obesity is to some extent connected with its
bearing upon the festive season. London has no ceremony
of the " Bceuf Gras" like that of Paris, but we have
at least a yearly show of the fat sheep and bullocks
which have been got ready for the Christmas sacrifice.
It is difficult to estimate the importance of such exhibi-
tions as this, in stimulating agricultural improvement. The
seventy years over which the history of this particular
exhibition stretches have been marked by more advance in
agriculture than any seven hundred years of previous his-
tory. Science has applied itself to the soil and to all the
products of the soil, from the humblest to the highest, to
stimulate, improve, and increase production. The prize ex
belongs essentiallyto the same movement which has produced
the steam plough andthe steam reaper. The prosperity of
a country may still be reckoned, somewhat as it was in an-
cient times by the multitude of its herds and the popu-
lousness of its pastures. But probably of all manufactures
that of meat is the most precarious and difficult; and the
farmers who will, during this week, crowd the Agricul-
tural Hall, may take back with them the assurance that
the very best thing they can do is to turn their attention
more and more to the supply of a market which is never
glutted, and in which there are always more to buy than
there are to sell.

The Standard declares that the Conservative working
men of Sheffield have much to answer for. They have
forced upon the Times a reminder of a disagreeable fact,
and hava thereby brought clown upon themselves and their
order an outburst of petulant spleen. The ugliest result
of Mr. Disraoii's Referm Bill is that it has brought to the
surface and developed into a powerful influence a body of
Conscriativo opinion and sentiment among the working
classes, the ',cry existence of which had been previously
denied. Lord Derby night call the Act of 1807 a leap in
the dark. br t Mr. Brit and the Radicals were tolerably
eertalz
and its verdict at the last election, Sheffield is bound to be
intensely Radical. Yet here we find one of those pestilent
Conselva•Hvo associations established and in full activity,
and with no less than a thousand working men enrolled as
members, although it has been hardly a year in existence.
It was a matter of boast on the occasion in question that
the election of last year she wed a Conservative gain of 700
votes, and the next contest is looked forward
to. with the Confident expectation that the minority
kill be changed into a majority. • While the
Liberal press has been pooh-poohing the Conservative
working men and their associations, theyhavebeensteadily
pursuing
the work to which they have set themselves,
bringing in new members, closing up their ranks, and,
above all, keeping a vigilant eye upon the register. If all
we hear of these Jabot" he true the strength of the Con-
servative party has been importantly enhanced by the
results of the registration, especially in Lancashire,
Norfolk, Kent, Yorkshire, Glamorganshire, and Berkshire,
and still more notably in the metropolitan borounh2.