The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times, in referring to Priday's debate, says that
the Lords have lost an opportunity of doing a deed of
high policy and of far-seeing wisdom. It does not attempt
to disguise the fact that the vote on the Duke of Cleve-
land's amendment is a defeat and a disappointment. We
must, indeed, point out that, by his mistaken compliance
with the wishes of the Protestant Opposition, the Duke
severed the branches of his „amendment, and almost
invited disaster. But, apart from this error of tactics,
the result, taken in connection with the previous
vote on the question of the Protestant parsonages,
has left the Irish Church Dill transformed into
a shape which cannot possibly be accepted.
The result would be a mockery of legislation. And the
mortification is that this threatened end of the measure is
due to the Ministers themselves. They rashly promised
churches, parsonages, and glebes last year, and they have
been kept to their words this session. They devised a
scheme for commuting the claims of Maynooth by the pay-
ment of fourteen years' purchase money of its annual.grant,
and they have been required to apply the same method of
commutation to the disestablished Church. The way was
open to them to have reconciled their pledges with equity,
and they refused it. They are now landed on this conse-
quence—that the redemption of their pledges is claimed
at the cost of the principle of the bill.
The Herald remarks that the confusion of parties caused
by the question was a very curious one, resembling much
in some respects that occasioned by Lord Cairns's amend-
ment to the Reform Bill in favour of the minority vote.
The occupants of the front Ministerial and Opposition
benches went into the same lobby. The stream that passed
into the other lobby with the Duke of Cleveland was
composed in the main of Whig peers faithful to their
principles and refusing to take their creed from
ignorant Welsh or semi-crazy Scotch dissenting
preachers, with a good sprinkling of Conserva-
tives who regarded the question in the same light
as Lord Salisbury. The amendment defeated, the
clause was adopted, shorn of the words requiring pay-
ment, to which Lord Salisbury objected, and the question
of concurrent endowment is therefore practically disposed

of. We cannot say that we regret the defeat of the par-
ticular proposal of the Duke of Cleveland, but we do
regret that the House of Lords has not pronounced by a
decisive majority in favour of some proposal which, secu-
ring to the clergy of the disestablished Church a fair pro-
vision, should also give decent residences to the Catholic
and Presbyterian ministers. We are afraid that there is
but too much truth in Lord A thlumney's speech, and that
a great opportunity has been thrown away.
The Star declares that, snaking every allowance for the
Whig peers who supported Lord Salisbury, the 213 who
voted for his amendment may be held to represent the
principle of securing for the Church all that could be saved,
without reference to the interests of any other denomina-
tion. How was it, then, that the House addressed itself
with such good will to the discussion of the Duke of
Cleveland's proposals for general endowment? The answer
is easy. They had to consider the House of Commons.
The majority of the Peers believe that House may
be induced to grant comparative opulence to the dises-
tablished Church, if only supplies are found with which to
gratify the Catholics, by housing their priests and pro-
viding them with glebes. But it need not be imagined
that members of the House of Commons are so ill-informed
and so thoughtless as to be ignorant of the principle of
concurrent endowment. It is with a thorough know-
ledge of its merits and vices that they have rejected it, and
inspired by the spirit shewn by Ministers on Friday night,
they will neither be cajoled, intimidated, nor even wearied
into what they firmly believe to be a retrograde policy,
The Tdcgraph asks, If we begin to endow, where are we
to stop ? On the minds even of men who have no °Lice-

tien to religious endowments in themselves, that question
operates with such force that they resist the creation of
any fresh endowments. For a variety of reasons, in short,
the country and the House of Commons have pronounced
against the principle of concurrent endowment ; the
Ministry has, with striking emphasis, repeated the pro-
test; and the House of Commons is too inflexible on the
subject not to be absoluteiy independent of the chance/
that hang on any division of the other House.

The Daily News thinks it hardly possible to conceive
hat even in the House of Lords any large section can be

so entirely blind to all that is passing round them as to
believe indiscriminate endowment to be possible. Even
the Church of England itself could never consent to a
policy which, as the Rev. H. R. Ilaweis points out, would
stultify its position towards the Church of Home. The
result of this piecemeal restoration of the present endow-
ments is otherwise the restoration of ascendancy. The
Conservative peers may or may not sanction the endow-
ment of the other Churches,but they will at least re-endow
their own Church as far as possible, and if they consent to
g've and t-• -0-- 01--ehes it will only be that
they may give the disestablished Church the more.
The Saturday Review remarks that if Mr. Gladstone's

Teeth at the Mansion House is to be understood in the
;ease which the majority of the commentators place on it,
t is obvious that no scheme of concurrent endowment can

be carried if the present Ministry is to retain office. Mr.
Gladstone and his colleagues will then have to say that
they entered into an express compact with the nation not
to entertain any suggestion such as that made by the
Duke of Cleveland. It would, we think, be a national
gain if the Duke of Cleveland's amendment could be car-
ried in the Lords and accepted by the Commons. But it
is quite open to the present Ministry to refuse to acquiesce
in it. They may say, and we are confidently told they
will say, that they have come into office and have framed
their bill on the express understanding that they will have
nothing to do with any scheme for giving any new benefit
to the clergy of any religious sect. They may have been
right or wrong, but this was their programme, and it
would be quite out of place for them to propose to the
House of Commons to adopt a scheme for giving the
Anglican Church a large slice out of the surplus in
return for a slice more or less large to be given to the
Romanists and the Presbyterians. A Ministry that
would consent to such a radical alteration of their bill
would be, Mr. Gladstone may urge, a very poor Ministry
—a Ministry that, by clinging to office, would greatly
damage its own credit and that of the Reformed Parlia-
ment. This Mr. Gladstone may say, and we are inclined
to think that this is what, in a very cloudy way, he
meant to hint at the Mansion House ; though still the
question arises why, when the opportunity was open to
him, Earl Granville did not say this distinctly in the
House of Lords? The Duke of Cleveland's amendment
is in itself justifiable on grounds that seem to us conclu-
sive ; but the peers who support it at the present crisis
ought, if such is the resolution of the Government, to have
been distinctly informed that they can only do so success-
fully if they are prepared to form a Ministry that will
possess the confidence of the nation in a greater degree
than the Cabinet of Mr. Gladstone possesses it.
The Spectator thinks that the Home Secretary's defence
of the Government for declining to continue the "Overend

prosecutions " was a very lame affair. Government has a
right to prosecute, and Mr. Bruce could not, therefore,
take his stand upon law ; and it has once or twice used its
right, and he could not, therefore, rely on a total absence
of precedent. He was obliged to say that " the Cabinet
saw nothing in the circumstances of the case for an excep-
tion to the general rule "—which would be conclusive, but
that the Cabinet represents the country, and the country
does see reason. The magnitude of the Overend failure
takes it altogether out of the rank of private misfortunes,
and makes an inquiry into the causes of the catastrophe a
matter of national moment. It may not be the duty of
the Government to inquire into every explosion of nitro-
glycerine, but if one happened in London and destroyed
half the metropolis—a disaster not by any .mea,us impos-
sible—inquiry would become a peremptory duty of the
State. There is not an income taxpayer in England who
is not the poorer for the conduct of the directors of
Overend, Gurney, and Co., and an inquiry whether that
conduct was legal or no is, if for that reason alone, within
the legitimate business of the Government. In denying
that the circumstances are exceptional, Mr. Bruce denies
patent facts, and gives just occasion for the remark that
in England there is no justice except for the very rich.
Dr. Thom, the private prosecutor, has, as he believes,
been defrauded of a large sum of money by men who have
been committed for trial, yet because those men can secure
great counsel and he cannot, he cannot have them tried,
though the law, at the same time, fines.him £5,000 for not
going on with an impossible suit. Mr. Bruce's refusal
would have been received with less annoyance if he had
promised even to inquire into the expediency of creating
public prosecutors ; but he did nothing of the kind,
avoided even an allusion to a subject which, as he knew
quite well, greatly occupied the public mind, and left an
an impression—we trust an erroneous one--that on this,
as on many other subjects, the Cabinet is opposed to the
policy of imposing new duties upon the State. That deci-
sion, if it has been taken, a point about which we profess
to know nothing, may delay referrn for a time, but it cer-
tainly will, in the long run, be overruled. The reform is
one of those in which public convenience and the weight
of argument go together, and whenever that is the case,
the innovators are sure, sooner or later, to prevail.
We shall be told, we dare say, that the task is too great
for the State to undertake ; that it would be loaded down
with business, that it would be better to clear the path for
the private prosecutor than to supersede him. We reply
to the first objection that the State does it in Scotland
without being overloaded at all, the system itself
gradually diminishing the necessity for itself by the corn
parative uprightness it ensures ; and, to the second, that
we do not propose to supersede the individual prosecutor.
We desire to do so, believing that his proper position
is that of witness, and that he is ten times as likely t 4
be " squared" as the State officer is ; but the ohaxActel

:

)t our

ople as yet offers too many objections to that
course. They have still to learn the great lesson which
;he nobles taught Scotland—that the State is the best
protector of the weak unit against the oppression of the
powerful one ; but it is not necessary to go so far. All
that is needful is to give the public prosecutor his locus
standi in court whenever he sees fit to exercise it, leaving
the aggrieved quite free, if the official fails him, to take
his own course. The official will not fail without some
sound reason for failing, or he will bear of it from an office
which will dread complaints in Parliament about prose.
tutors as it new dreads complaints about police. It is an
addition to the present machinery; a most powerful addi-
tion, which we seek, and not a reconstruction of tlie entire
machine.

The Eonontist repeats Mr. Lowe's question, "If any
bank notes arc good, why not £1 bank notes? The com-
mon answer is that they take the place of sovereigns; the
paper being of the same denomination will soon drive out
the coin. But all bank notes take the place of coin, and
are only valuable because they do so. If therefore it be
true,,as no doubt it is, that £1 notes, being of the same
value as sovereigns, take their place more and sooner, this
fact of itself only shews that they are better than other
bank notes, not that they are worse. They economise a
;renter quantity of coin, and economise it more rapidly
after their introduction. They have more of the charac-
teristic use of bank notes, and are so far preferable to all
others. There used to be a notion (and it is deeply fixed
in English currency books) that a large metallic circula-
tion, using circulation in its strictest sense—a large
mount of coin going daily from hand to hand and
laily serving in the market—was of use to correct the
exchanges. When the exchange became adverse,
't was said, and gold or silver had to be sent away,
there was, owing to this common circulation, more gold
that could be so used. But, in fact, you cannot get at
that circulation when you want it. It is in the pockets of
the masses and in the tills of shopkeepers. There would
be much labour and much time wanted to collect it, and
exchange business is a very quick business. When gold
has to go to pay our foreign debts, it must go at once and
when foreigners ask for it. We cannot "ask for time ;'•
we cannot grope about in the country markets for our
specie ; we must pay to the hour, or our credit is gone.
There must be in the central money market a great hoard
)r hoards of the precious metals, where a large sum can
be immediately found, and where it can at once be taken.
If we have this ready and sufficient supply of gold and
silver in large sums at the centre, it is no matter whether
we use gold and silver in the petty dealings of life, or
whether we use paper ; and if we have not this ado-
plate central supply, the diffused country coin will not do
Is work.

The John Bull says that it is difficult for those who
care more for the principle of establishment than for the
retails of endowment to take any enthusiastic interest in
the proceedings in the Lords, yet no Churchman can be
indifferent to the pecuniary interests of the Free Church
should that part of the United Church existing in Ireland
unhappily be disestablished. But we are far more con-
-Trued in seeing the bill so shaped in committee as to
secure its ultimate rejection ; and that further appeal to
the country, which the Liberal party so evidently dread.
The amendment carried by the Archbishop of Canterbury,
to postpone for one year the operation of the measure,
seems to us a very doubtful advantage. The Duke of
Leinster was probably not far wrong when he said that it
would keep the country in hot water for another year. A
lingering existence could only prolong the agony of disso-
lution ; and if the robbery is to be effected, the sooner the
Church can assert her inherent spiritual powers and adapt
Iserself to her new position, we should have thought the
better. But if Irish Churchmen think otherwise, they
'save a clear right to a year's grace. Probably this is an
%mendment on which their lordships will not insist, even
'f the decision be not overruled when the report is brought
sp.

Lieutenant-General the Hon. Sir Augustus
Spencer, who is about to proceed to Bombay as Com-
mander•in-Chief of that Presidency, has appointed as his
military secretary Captain V. S. Stephenson, of the
Scots Fusiliers, at present brigade-major of the Brigade
)f Guards.

MURDER IN LIMERICK.—in the county of Lime-
rick a farmer named Neale had a dispute on Thursday
with a person named Fay, who lived in a house which
tie. rented from the former. Fahy struck Neale on the
lead with a large stone, the injury inflicted causing death
'n a few hours.

THE RECENT CORK OUTRAGE.—The adjourned
Inquest on the body of Andrew Campbell, the Fenian,
who was shot by Mr. Pope Gray, when he entered that
gentleman's residence, Ballinaslough House, near Cork,
)n the I'sth of April, to plunder it of arms, has concluded.
the jury returned a verdict of Justifiable Homicide, and
warmly eulogised the bravery displayed i)y Mr. and Mrs.
ray, and their humanity to the wounded Fenian.,

EXPLOSION OF A BALLOON.—Lloyd's agent at
Buenos Ayres reports the following accident on the 24th of
May at the fête given in commemoration of the anniver-
sary of the declaration of freedom :—"An aeronaut named
Baraille made an ascent in a balloon from the centre of
the Piazza. It remained stationary over the city for some
time, there being no wind, and on descending fell into the
harbour. A number of boats and a small steamer named the
Cavour, put off to the rescue of the aeronaut, who was
lrowning in his car. By some misfortune the balloon in
-oiling about came in contact with the funnel of the
steamer, and, the gas getting ignited, exploded with
terrible force, blowing the crew overboard, as also those
in the boats.. The steamer was set on fire, and sustained
much damage. The Buenos Ayres papers state that eight
persons were fatally injured and twenty-five were much
burnt and injured."

TWICE SUED AND THEN MARRIED.—In the
Small Debt Court, Dundee, on Tuesday, the hearing of
an action for the recovery of money expended by a family
for the maintenance of a female who had lodged with
them revealed how a marriage had taken place under cir-
cumstances very unusual. A man somewhat advanced in
life became enamoured of a young woman, to whom for
some time he paid his addresses, and ultimately promised
marriage. He, however, departed from the promise he
made, and was sued by the injured lady. He had to pay
£3O. &second time he came under the spell from which
he had only been able to extricate himself by pecuniary
aid. He declined, however, to be caught, and abandoned
the lady a second time. Her injured feelings would not,
of course, stand this, and she raised a second action,
which was soldered up for £lO. The attractions of the
lady bad apparently been of an unusually potent character.
The fickle swain was at last securely hooked. Thinking
any further postponement unnecessary, he conducted the
invincible lady to the altar. The Sheriff remarked, after
the recital of the circumstance, that the man had taken
an unusual course—first dowering a woman and then
marrying her.—Dundee Advertiser.

SCOTTISH ►SURNAMES.—The clanship of Scotland
has tended to limit the number of surnames in that coun-
try. A hundred and fifty surnames represent nearly half
the entire three millions of population. First in number
in Scotland, as in England, stand the cosmopolitan Smiths;
but Jones, the name which occupies the second place in
England, is "nowhere" in Scotland. M`Donald is second
in Scotland ; and then follow Brown, Thomson, Robertson.
Stewart, Campbell, Wilson, and Anderson. Dr. Stark,of
the Registry Office, has ascertained that the registers of
births in 1863 chew t*.ese to be the nine strongest
surnames in Scotland, and the same result was obtained
on a former occasion from an examination of the registers
of births, deaths, and marriages in 1855, 1856, and 1858.
Scott is the tenth name upon the birth register of 1863,
followed by Miller, M`Kenzie, Reid, Ross, M`Kay,
Johnston, Murray, Clark, Paterson, Yonne., the spelling
sometimes varying a little in different families. In the
list obtained from the registers of 1855,1856, and 1858 Fraser
and Maclean had place among the first twenty, and Clark
and Young were a little lower on the roll. Notwithstanding
the large modern accession of Irish and other immigrants,

several Scottish surnames still very decidedly predominate
in certain parts of the country. In proportion to pope•
lation there are much fewer surnames in Scotland than in
England ; the total number is about 6,800. The most
usual Christian names in Scotland are John and James
for men, Margaret and Mary for women.

FERNDALE COLLIERY ACCIDENT.—The inquest 00
the bodies of the men .killed by the colliery accident,
opened formally, directly after the explosion, has recently'
been resumed ; and is likely to last for some time.
In the course of his opening remarks, the coroner
said the continual recurrence of these fearful
calamities must naturally make a deep impression upon all
thinking minds, and' he had always felt that they might
to a considerable extent be prevented if more stringent
measures were taken. lle had from time to time made
suggestions, and urged upon the authorities that some
legislative measures should be taken ; but he regretted
his endeavours had not been attended with success',
and there was such opposition displayed against
every change or restriction that had been suggested that
there was very little chance of carrying any important
measure through the House of Commons. It was melan-
choly to reflect th.tt where human lives were concerned
commercial considerations and interest should preponde'
rate. Some formal evidence was taken, and a correct liet
of the dead handed in. Walters, the overman, described
the condition of the pit previous to and after the accident,
and said that the fireman reported the day before the ex•
plosion that the colliery was all right, except a little gag
in one heading. The day of the explosion he met the
fireman, who said the ventilation was good, but that 01
was in the Duffryn district. Kept no register of reen
employed, and only knew how many
.1,27 the number ot
►ps giro% out.