The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-11 00:00:00

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the greatest military display in the East ; Russia,
to excite commotions through her numerous secret
agents ; even Austria was preparing to do
something, though glad enough, in her poverty,
to call off when she found there was
a good pretext for doing it. In fact Turkey well
knows that nothing but the difficulty of dividing
the spoil has saved her from being eaten up alive
long ago by so many Christian powers around her.
It is, however, a humiliating fact that, as a Go-
vernment, Turkey is more liberal and tolerant than
any of the powers who wish to dismember her•
Religious liberty is, so far as Government ordi-
nances go, complete. There is no such liberty in
France itself ; while, as to Austria, her whole
policy has been to crush out Protestantism in blood.
In some States she has done it. In Hungary, and
others, it is not her fault if she has not made them
all Catholic at the point of the sword. Russia is no
better. The CZAR is the Head of the Church there,
and a miserable Life, if permitted to live at all, have
all the sects who will not amalgamate with the
Greek Church. The CZAR forbids the circulation
of the Bible in his dominions ; the SULTAN almost

encourages it.
Effeteness must be the ruin of the Turkish Em
pire. It cannot maintain its Treasury. The very
soldiers, row with FUAD PASHA, are deeply in
arrear, and those who joined in the massacres and
pillage had still larger demands for long withheld
pay. It is to be feared that this had almost as
much to do with their conduct as fanaticism
itself. Unhappily, everything in Turkish ad-
ministration and finance is incurably rotten.
Money enough is raised ; but first the SULTAN
himself is a squanderer of enormous sums
on his personal gratifications ; next, every
official embezzles half that passes through his
hands. It is all extortion and scramble from the
lowest to the highest. The poor Rayah, or Greek,
or Armenian is squeezed by the collectors ; they
appropriate all they dare ; the provincial governors
follow their example ; the SULTAN concluding by
drawing all he can for palace-building and mar-
riages of his family. We do not know that we
have too much to boast of in respect of Chancellors
of the Exchequer, but could we furnish the SULTAN
with one, and insure his power to carry out his
plans, there is little doubt but that he might give
Turkey, even yet, a tolerable lease of imperial life.
She raises money enough, but every conduit to the
Exchequer leaks. And, then, before the army and
national objects are attended to, the SULTAN drains
out his lion's share.

Mr. COWPER has not even the manliness to stand
by his own opinions. Yesterday, in answer to the
caustic remarks of the noble lord the member for
Marylebone, and of the hon. baronet the member
for Westminster, the Chief Commissioner of Public
Works actually commenced his flippant observa•
tions, by "regretting that he should have been
supposed to speak disrespectfully of any of the ves-
tries of the metropolis," adding, "He certainly
intended no such thing." Whereupon the House
cried " Oh ! oh !" as it well might in so recent a
recollection. Why, look but for a moment at the
words uttered by Mr. COWPER at the previous
sitting—look at those words as reported in
any one of the newspapers, and say whe-
ther they were not expressive of senti-
ments in regard to the vestries certainly any-
thing but complimentary. And then upon the very
next day—when Mr. CowrEß is deservedly called
to account for remarks so wholly unbecoming the
lips both of a Minister and of a representative, when
his course in so speaking is strongly reprobated, as
it richly merits being reprobated, by liberal metro-
politan members like Lord FERMOY and Sir JOHN
SHELLEY—the Chief Commissioner has the little-
ness,the absolute meanness to "regret that he should
have been supposed to speak disrespectfully of
any of the vestries of the metropolis"—and the
actual effrontery to add, that "he certainly in-
tended no such thing." Again we must acknow-

ledge that we cannot wonder for an instant that
such an assertion as that should have been greeted
with cries of "Oh ! oh !" by the House of Com-

mons.
All this, however, is perfectly of a piece
with the whole of Mr. COWPER'S proceedings in
the matter of this intolerable innovation. It is
quite in keeping with his discourtesy towards
the deputation he had appointed to receive one
afternoon at his official residence—in spite
of which personal appointment it will be remem-
bered that Mr. CoWPER had the incivility not to
be there in attendance. It harmonises, moreover,
entirely with every word that has fallen from the
Chief Commissioner's lips in defence of this parti-
cular proceeding of his in arbitrarily laying out
(unasked!) a horse-ride carried right across Ken-
sington Gardens—a roadway that is no sooner
marked out than the fact of its being so marked
out is received with a general storm of disapproba-
tion. If anything could exceed the absurdity of the
Ministers' previous arguments it would certainly
be the arguments advanced by him yesterday
in support of his singular antagonistic posi-
tion in this matter in his relation to the
great mass of the West-end population.
What is his amende to the vestries (vestries he
is so surprised to have been supposed to have
spoken of disrespectfully) ? Why, saith Mr. Cow-
PER—" What was called self-government and local
representation was an excellent thing [what
a condensation of encomium!] and mach to be
admired when it was kept within its proper sphere;
but," continued the Chief Commissioner, "it was
likely to fall in public estimation when local repre-
sentative bodies assumed an AUTHORITY that did
not belong to them !" Now we ask everyone, we
ask Mr. COWPER himself, what in the name of for-
tune is the " authority" which has been "assumed"
in this matter of the horse-ride by any one of the
West-end vestries, the vestries of Marylebone, for
instance, or of Kensington ? Why, those vestries
have done simply and solely what the humblest
persons in the land have been ever hitherto sup-
posed to possess a perfect right, a wholely unalien-
able right, to do under any or every
circumstance—they have expressed their opinions
upon a subject directly affecting their own in-
terests, comfort, and convenience, and they have
resorted to the exercise of a popular privilege per-
mitted even to the slavish subjects of the veriest
despotism upon the Continent—the entirely inof-
fensive and innocuous privilege of Petitioning the
Sorereilqn ! 'That is literally the extent of the
"authority assumed" by any of the vestries of the
metropolis in regard to Kensington-Gardens.
Yet, listening to the complaint of the Chief
Commissioner, one might almost be led to suppose
that the vestries had been, at the very least,
organizing a riotous assemblage that, in the
excess of its temerity, has bodily re-
moved the hurdles, marking out the ob-
noxious road set apart by Mr. COWPER for the
enjoyment of the equestrians ! Surely anyone may,
at least, be allowed the extraordinary privilege of
dissenting from the views of Mr. COWPER, in re-
gard to the propriety of a horse-ride or of a horse-
laugh, or of any other equine manifestation.
Surely, anyone in the three kingdoms,
be he, or be he not, a member of
a vestry, whether provincial or metropolitan, may