The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-11 00:00:00

NPTTLIT OF Tali: PUBLIC JOURNALS,

A great Ballot meeting, according to the Star, is to take
place in the Arundel Hall, on the evening of the 15th.
under the presidency of Mr. Milner Gibson. That gen-
tleman, in the opinion of the Star, is the very man to
carry the Ballot. He is popular both in the country am
in Parliament, and has the prestige of success. But
whether Mr. 'Milner Gibson is to be the new Ballot leader
or not—and in congratulating the friends of the Ballot
on selecting him as their chairman for the 15th, there is
no sort of reflection on either Mr. Berkeley, Sir Henry
Bulwer, or Mr. Leatham—it is quite certain a very strong
movement in favour of secret voting is about to begin.
The late elections have mot diminished, but increased, the
presumptive evidence in its favour. The open adhesion
of Mr. Glyn, the favourable expressions of Cabinet
Ministers, and especially the significant expressions of
Mr. Gladstone on the hustings at Greenwich, lead irre-
sistibly to the conclusion that the old prejudices and hos-
tilities may be .stormed with an excellent prospect of
immediate success ; and a hope of this sort is often more
spurring than the most desperate exigencies of warfare.
Very likely the Ballot may prove at the meeting of Parlia-
ment a foregone conclusion. In, that the country will
owe much to the Ballot Society ; tnuch to fine old Radi-
cals such as Mr. Grote, who many years ago supplied
all their successors with abundance of missiles and
the best proof armour ; much to more recent orators
such as Mr. Bright, who have, in season and out of season,
kept the rudder of popular opinion firmly in the direction
which events are now likely to take. Liberals w'io have
faith in their princ'ples need not hesitate to discount their
triumph. Come it must some day. Come it probably
will with great speed. And when it comes it will be a
real and fruitful victory. To carry the Ballot will not be
merely carrying a point. It will be the fulfilment of hopes
as high and pure as ever inspired political action. It will
be the assertion of individual liberty, the overthrow of
illegitimate control, the paralysis of pecuniary corruption,
the frustration of the intimidator, the establishment of order
—in fact, the regeneration of our whole electoral system.
These results, indeed, may be looked forward to with
satisfaction by all politicians who believe in the potency
of political truth—by- all politicians, in fact, who do not
rely on base means for the unscrupulous promotion of
unworthy ambitions. But Liberals have a sound and
wholesome confidence that the ultimate issues of the new
and safely-secured electoral freedom will be specially in
their favour. For though corruption and influence may
occasionally have served the good cause, they are statedly
and normally arrayed against it ; and it is corruption and
influence which the Ballot is about to banish from our
elections.

The Daily News considers that our criminal procedure
in cases of murder is hopelessly inefficient, and cites
numerous instances in which innocent men have narrowly
escaped the extreme penalty of the law. It sometimes
happens by an unfortunate mistake that the murderer gets
into the witness-box, while the chief witness against him
is in the dock, when the results of the trial almost in.
evitably defeat the ends of justice. That the appoint.
ment of a public prosecutor would tend to remedy some
admitted evils, is generally allowed. It is a reform which
would have been made long ago had not its advocates
been too lethargic, and fonder of discussion than action.
If those who have made up their minds would but put
their shoulders to the wheel, the work would speedily
be accomplished. Other changes, such as that of
permitting a prisoner charged with murder to tell
his own story, and to appeal from the court which
tries him to a court of criminal appeal, are still agitating
the minds of professional men. That they would be
improvements is highly probable. That they would lead
to grave abuses is very unlikely. Certain it is that no
one defends the present system as a whole, or denies that
it can be amended. The writer in the Wes'nzinster Review
does not exaggerate when he states the case in these
few but pithy words :—" At present Justice allows
herself to be both shackled and surprised ; she cannot
pursue her inquiries effectually before the trial ;
she is liable to sudden surprises at the trial ;
she has no opportunity allowed her of further
consideration "or investigation." Perhaps the strongest
argument for change is contained in the simple statement
that out of every ten murderers nine go sect free. The
staunchest opponents of capital punishment must unite
with its advocates in deprecating a system under which
this result is possible. Colonel Sleeman broke up the
organisation of the Thugs in India. If we do not provide
now for the more effectual detection of murderers in Eng-
land, we shall perhaps be obliged hereafter to lament that
Thuggee, banished from its native home, has taken root
in English soil.
The Telegraph asks why the Civil Service should be
associated with insolvency. The poor pay of the service
does not suffice to explain the enigma, because the clerks
of bankers, merchants, &c., receive lower remuneration,
and yet they struggle on without paying sixty per cent.
for loans, and finally clearing off their debts in the Bank.
ruptcy Court. Another reason often assigned is, that
Government clerks are expected to keep up the manners,
tone, style, and appearance of gentlemen, and are there-
fore driven into a rate of expenditure beyond their means,
We suppose that somewhere in the archives of Downing.
street may be preserved a copy of the original minute which
ordains the dismissal of a clerk unless he orders his coats in
Bond-street or Savile-row, lives in tolerably fashionable
lodgings, and keeps himself abreast of the theatrical
and other amusements of the town. We have never,
indeed, seen a copy of this famous decree ; but that it
exists there can be little doubt, from the creditable exer-
tions of the civil servants to comply with the spirit, if not
the letter, of its commands. Nevertheless, there still
remains the mystery why a young man employed to copy
letters all day in Whitehall should be a fashionable young
gentleman, while another young man doing exactly similar
work in the City should be considered rather humble than
otherwise ; the West-end clerk going into good society with
ease, the East-ender relegated to Islington or Peckham.
If we turned all Government offices into places of real
work, we should not have them full of very fashionable
young men, some with independent incomes of their own.
These favoured persons would then cease to set their
poorer colleagues an example of idleness, extravagance,
and debt ; and a more industrious and more economical
array of servants would supersede the present generation
—many of whom are good-for-nothing gentlemen of family
and fortune. A working Civil Service would be utterly
unfit for men of this stamp ; they would soon vote it
" low ;" and the " labour test " applied in Downing.
street would induce them to resign by the score.
The Herald declares that there could not be a more
extraordinary example in all the history of crime than
the confession of William Sheward, respecting the murder
of his wife, in the year 1851. The man, accord.
ing to his own showing, had been twice married,
had a family, was unfortunate in business, had
taken to ardent liquors, and lost this wife, whoever
she was, and whatever her age, exactly when she was
about to enjoy a handsome legacy. Again, it is a notice.
able fact that, although fragments of humanity were
found, and although he disappeared from the locality,
nobody ever suspected him. Seventeen years after.
wards, when he was perfectly safe from suspicion, he
comes forward and says that he committed the crime.
But the people who remembered the (late declare that they
do not recognise him as the Irian. Of Course, unless an
individual's sanity be satisfactorily challenged his confes-
sion of a crime holds good ; but there are so many circum-
stances of mystery and even of incredibility surrounding
this matter, that we do not envy the jury who will have to
decide upon it, and who will have to say whether the
man under remand at Norwich was or was not guilty of
the crime.

A. PRETTY WOMAN.—A pretty woman is one of
the institutions of the country—an angel in muslin and
glory. She makes sunshine, blue sky, and happiness
wherever she goes. Her path is one of delicious roses, per-
fume, and beauty. She is a sweet poem, written in rare
colours and choice silk, and good principles. Men stand up
before her as so many admiration points. Her words float
around the ear like music, birds of Paradise, or the perfumes
of the Sabbath bells. Without her society would lose its
truest attraction, the Church its firmest reliance, the young
men the very best company.
THE HUMILITY OF TRUE G REATNESS. --I re-
member once on a' time a shopkeeper of a town in the north
of Ireland, within which it was my province to reside, rose
to the dignity of mayor. In the freshness of my youthful
feelings, and in a sense of gratitude for the excellence of
the pale ale he dealt in, I ventured to congratulate him.
Touched, not impossibly by confusion, and the difficulty I
experienced in conveying my compliments aright, he stopped
me suddenly by saying, " No matter, Mr. O'Dowd. It is a
very great and lofty eminence, no doubt, but it shall never
make any difference between you and me."—Blackwood.
GOLD IN SIJTH ERLANDSIIIILE.—E very clay series
to show that the gold diggings at Kildonan are an un-
doubted fact, and that the precious metal is to be found in
such abundance as to repay the labour of searching for it.
A great many individuals from Ilelmsdale and neighbour-
hood, and some from Caithness, have been at Kildonan
" propecting," and all have brought home quantities
varying from a pennyweight to an ounce. Nearly an
ounce was collected by two pers,)ns in a couple of days, by
simply washing the sand on the banks of a burn. A good
many people were inclined to be sceptical about the exist-
ence of gold in any quantity at Kildonan, but the fact of
so many persons finding it almost on the surface has con-
vinced the most unblieving. Finding gold to the amount
of from ss. to 20s. a day is certainly a convincing argument.
But the existence of gold in the North is not confined to
Kildonan alone. It has been ascertained that it is to be
found on the slopes of the Scarabens and other bills in the
neighbourhood, and permission to search for and work it is
all that is needed. By all accounts, the hills in the Reay
district are equally auriferous.—Northern Ensign.