The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-27 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, MARCH. 27, 1E69.

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L OND ON, SA 1 URDAY, MARCH 27, 1869.

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Reading the particulars of the Demonstration yes-
terday, in Trafalgar-square, in honour of the late
Mr. ERNEST JONES, is very much like reading a pas-
sage selected haphazard from " Hone's Everyday
Book." There were imitation fasces, there, sur-
mounted by red caps of Liberty. There was a dis-
reputable mock clergyman, wearing a dog's-eared
band and a battered college-cap, attended by his
clerk, and offering up, for the dole of a few pence,
a comic prayer or two from a burlesque liturgy.
There were itinerant vendors of cheap creature-com-
forts in the shape of oranges and gingerbread. There
were distributors of religious tracts—sonic of them
trickling milk-and-water—some of there breathing
fire-and-brimstone. There were specimens of all the
ragamuffins and gallimaufry to be found in the back-
slums, and rookeries, and thieves' quarters of the
metropolis—what T. PERCY JONES, otherwise W.
EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN, sang of long ago in his great
serio-comic drama of " Firmillian " as—
" The tag and rag and bob-tail of the town !"
Extempore preachers were there to enforce (?),
in the homeliest phrase and with the idioma-
tic force of the merest vulgarisms, the aw-
ful truths of Holy Writ. There were extra- trum-
pery, Political Orators, " stumping" after our Eng-
lish fashion—that is, at the street corners, and not
in the recently peopled clearings of the back-woods.
There were " roughs " ad libitum—" cads " unnum-
bered—" duffers " in singular (one can hardly say
pleasing) variety—intermingled with many of those
obscene forms only seen in public places and in broad
daylight on some exceptional and wholly abnormal
occasions, such as had, yesterday, as it happened, called
them all together ! Of all good days in the year—on
Good Friday ! A day that would have been altogether
incomprehensible, as having been thus selected for a
so-called popular demonstration only for the circum-
stance that by our bewildering national habit this
austerest of purely and essentially Christian anni-
versaries—Good Friday —is the day beyond all other
days in the whole year for "an Outing !" If on
no other day out of the three hundred and sixty-
five, Tom, DICK, and HARRY, with all their belong-
ings, make a day of it (to say nothing of a night at
the close of it)—they do, as a rule, almost, it would
seem, as a necessity, on Good Friday. There is cer-
tainly one " institution" seemingly in some measure
to sanctify it, we are left to presume,—the salt
fish appearing then upon every English dinner
table, as on Ash-Wednesday—just as inevitably
as the sugar-frosted plum-cake on Twelfth-
Night, as the pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, or as
the mincvies at Christmas. Barring the, in some
mysterious way, sacred significance, we suppose, of
the salt-fish with its accompaniment of egg-sauce,
Good Friday, year by year, is chiefly remarkable
here in England as a day for—what the working
classes so perfectly well know, and so curiously enjoy
after their fashion, as—" an Osting." This year
London had the privilege of celebrating Good Fri-
day in an additional, and as we have said in a
strangely exceptional manner, by having the " finest
site in Eutope," as the late Sir ROBERT PEEL once
called it, made the rendezvous for all the Chartist
enthusiasts and Fenian sympathisers in the
metropolis, in honour of one of the most respectable
champions of the former, himself but very recently
deceased, to wit, the late Mr. ERNEST JONES, son of
the late Colonel JONES, godson of ERNEST, KING OF
HANOVER, a barrister of the Middle Temple, a
cultivated man-of-letters, and, therefore, in other
words, an educated gentleman. To honour the me-
mory of Mr. ERNEST JONES, the rabble of Londou
were gathered together yesterday in Trafalgar-square
—yesterday, being Good Friday—there to listen,
among other things, to an oration delivered by Mr G.
J. HoixoaKE, who, if anything at all is known of him,
is known most certainly as what is called a Free
Thinker, or, in other words, as an avowed
unbeliever in Christianity. Consequently— a
most decorous, and suitable, and appro-
priate demonstration, to have been held in the most
conspicuous public place in London—on Good Friday !
There is one consideration which almost reconciles
us to the remembrance of this same most extraordi-
nary demonstration. And it is this, that it is pro-
bably the last we shall hear of anything whatever of
the kind. The Reform League has recently evi-
denced its own keen sense, at last, of the fact that the
time has gone by for the continuance any longer of
this description or species of political tom-foolery by re-
ceiving and accepting the resignation of its Presi •
dent, Mr. EDMUND BEALES, M.A. That of itself has
been a sufficiently significant Sign of the Times.
The failure, the notorious and utterly contemptible
failure, of Mr. FINLEN'S last demonstration was an-
other. And now yesterday's —Good Friday's—de-
monstration, in honour of the memory of Mr.
ERNEST JONES, is the last, and not by any means
the least significant among them all. The whole
thing is ridiculous. And it is not only ridiculous, it
is disreputable. London has had more than enough
of it. From first to last it has been a public nuisance.
For the prevention of its recurrence, we look now to
Mr. BRUCE and to Colonel HENDERSON.

SOME fifteen years ago a cutting article appeared
in the short-lived " Oxford University Essays,"
decrying the system of education pursued at the
London University, and magnifying that pursued at
Oxford. The writer of the article was, of course, an
Oxonian, and has since become known as a brilliant,
and yet painstaking, historian. Mr. FROUDE, the
writer to whom we refer, has just delivered his address
as Rector of the University of St. Andrew's. It was elo-
quent and earnest, as any words of his were sure to be.
But there is one point specially noticeable in it.
Mr. FROUDE no longer holds up Oxford as the
typical university. He has foundhis modelnorth of the
Tweed. In fact, he seems to have been smitten with
that love for everything Scottish which now seems
to be the prevailing fashion. It is not so many
years ago that the Scot was the Southron's butt.
His poverty, his breechless legs, his snuff-laden
nose, his clannishness and nepotism, his in-
sensibility to wit, his love of getting on,
were all stock subjects for the English jester. But
now all is changed. Mr. BRIGHT points Churchmen
to Scotland for an example of what the voluntary
principle can do for religion; Sir ROBERT COLLIER
farleitcearl halfeceo
borrows his-Bankruptcy Bill from Scotland ; Scotch
banking has long been held a pattern for English
bankers to imitate ; Scotchmen have long been the
principalgorita rulerspo tntthoohniefanlraynß:dhiyaa;ysScooftchengin Europe;eersßu areuN s con-
structingis a
IRON ; A DAM SMITH i 3 thefather
of p
WILLIAM HAMILTON is the
chief of philosophers ; Mr. CARLYLE is the prince of
historians; the author of the Scotch Reform
Bill found that he had no compound householders to
deal with north of the Tweed ; Scotland has alreaay
solved the great question of popular education which
has so long troubled, and is still troubling, England ;
and the Scotch universities are the only insti-
tutions of the kind which answer to their name by
offering instruction to the poorest student: In this
last statement Mr. FROUDE is fdlly borne out by the
report of the royal commissioners on endowed schools.
In fact, no one who knows anything of our universities
can doubt it. At an English university, says
the distinguished Oxonian Rector of St. Andrew's,
the furniture of a noble earl's room may cost, includ-
ing the pictures of opera-dancers and racehorses and

such-like, £5OO. It was not always so. When the
magnificent Earl of ESSEX was sent to Cambridge,
in ELIZABETH'S time, his guardians provided him
with a deal table covered with green baize, a truckle-
bed, half-a-dozen chairs, and a washhand-basin ; the
cost of all was £,5. The scholar was then held in high
honour, however poor. KNOX, BUCHANAN, LUTHER,
TYNDAL, MILTON, KEPLER, SPINOZA, were brought
up in this way. There was then an apprenticeship of
instruction and a discipline of poverty. Both these
two great portions of education have disappeared in
England, says Mr. FROUDE, and "we have got
instead what is called enlarged minds," that is "an
enormous accumulation of propositions of all sorts
and kinds thrust down the students' throats to be
poured out again into the examiners' laps." ' It is
not so in Scotland. There at least one half of
education, the discipline of poverty, continues. .The
student's resources may be but £2O a year, and the
bag of oatmeal which he brings with him as his

food for the term. It will not be the Rector's fault
if the other half of education is not also retained.

It was to this point that Mr. FROUDE directed the
greater portion of his address. At the same time it
would not be difficult to take exceptions to some of
his remarks. In fact, they seem occasionally some-
what contradictory. He quoted the saying of N OVAL'S
that " Philosophy will bake no bread, but it gives
us souls," and yet he insisted at great length
on the importance of making those matters,
the knowledge of which will help us to get on in
after life the chief subjects of our study. He told
the lawyer to study French and Latin, because those
two languages were necessary for him to understand
the laws of Scotland ; the doctor was told to study
Latin, French, and German,because they were essen-
tial to an acquaintance with medical science ; both
lawyer and doctor were told to abjure Greek, for a
reason which Mr.FnotDE might have expressed in the
homely and somewhat vulgar phrase, "It doesn'tpay."
Similarly the engineer was told to learn Spanish, Tur-
kish, Russian , because any number of Scotch C .E.s, who
know those languages may get employment abroad.
To the clergy, also, Mr. FROUDE had a message, and
it was phrased so as to be a sarcasm upon the
English clergy. It was that they should teach
their people to be honest and to abjure false weights,
rather than to " quarrel about the colour of eccle-
siastical petticoats ;" to open their eyes, and see what
is going on around them, rather than to
grope among books in order to find out what men
did in Constantinople or Alexandria 1,500 years
ago. Further, if Britain should prove too narrow
for all her children, there is that greater Britain
beyond seas where fresh centres of freedom and
civilisation shall grow up. All this is very sound
practical advice, though scarcely what one would

have expected from a man of such high cul-
ture as Mr. FROUDE. The truth is, as we
gather from the concluding, portion of his address,
he thinks that culture is only for the few. Men who
mean to take up literature or philosophy as the
calling of their lives must be quite sure of their pur-
pose ; must be able to live pecuniarily independent of
it ; must not look for money pay in proportion to their
merits. There are, of course, the men who get so
many guineas a sheet; but these Mr. FR o UDE considers
men of words only ; the men of ideas must be
content like MILTON to get E 5 for " Paradise Lost."
We hope that the Rector of St. Andrew's University
has received more than this for his " History of
England from the Fall of WOLSEY to the Death of
ELIZABETH." We suspect that the editor of Fraser's
"many guineas a sheet."
Magazine gets a good

LAIEST INTELL LGENOE

(REUTER'S TELEGRAXS.)

AMERICA.
NEW Yor.K, March 26.

According to Mr. Adam Moffatt's report the
week's receipts of cotton at United States ports
have been 32,000 bales, and since the Ist of Sep-
tember, and taken by American spinners direct,
2,000,000 bales. Shipments to England 20,000
bales, to France 5,000 bales, and to the continent
4,000 bales ; and since the Ist of Sept. 960,000
bales. Stock 420,000 bales. Market dearer. Mid-
dling upland, 11 d., cost and freight per steamer.

SOUTHAMPTON, March 26.

' Tt e Hamburgh and American Company's
steamer Cimbria, from New York, arrived here to-
day, with 61 passengers and 86 sacks of mails for
London and Hamburgh, and $28,954 for Paris.
On the 2'2d she spoke the American ship John W.
Cushing, from Amsterdam for New York, 25 days
out ; 25th the American ship Alexander Marshall,
bound East; 25th the Bremen steamer Hansa,
Found West ; and on the 26th the British brig
Suez, bound East.

PORTUGAL.

LISBON, March 26.

The funeral of Captain Roderick Dew of KM.
ship Nortbumberland took place in the Protestant
Cemetery to-day. The members of the British
Legation attended, together with several British,
American, Portuguese, and Prussian officers.

AUSTRIA.

VIEXNA, March 27.

Zeeictrueneg,
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sanctioning thismornitnhge
puTblhiseheOsifiacniallmWpeeilerliarl decree,
Fivance Law and the Estimates for 1869.

BRAZIL AND RIVER PLATE MAIL.
LISBON, March 26.

The Liverpool, Brazil, and River Plate Com-
pany's steamer Donati arrived here to-day. She
experienced strong head winds.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb. 28.
The coffee sales since the 22d have been 32,800
bags. Prices unchangel Stock, 105,000 bags.
Cotton, no sales. Stock, 1,100 bales; 16 millreis
asked, 15 offered. Exchange on London, 181.
Sovereigns, 13,500. In Six per Cent. Stock large
transactions have taken place at 801- to 80i. Gold
bonds, 965 to 966.
Count de Eu will not command the Brazilian
forces in Paraguay, but General Polydoro is re-
ported as the successor of the Marquis de Caxias.
The Paraguayans at Assumption have petitioned
the Allies to establish a Provisional Government.

A second Argentine expedition has been sent to
the Interior of Paraguay.
Nothing positive was known of Lopez. He is
said to have 18 canons and 3,000 men in the moun-
tains.

Money was scarce. Exchange on London 18
Bank bills.

FRANCE.
BOURSE, March 25.—Three o'clock—The market
closed as follows

4i per Cont.
End of month
3 per Cent
End of month_ 70 50
Credit Mobilier
End of month 2•30
Credit Foncior
End of month —
RAILWA:

Bank Shares 2870
Ital,an Fives 55 90
End of month —
Mexican Loan
Do. Bonds
Spanish Threes
Home Debt — --
Deferred —

Cash
Orleans ... 965
Northern ............................. ..• JIBII
Lyons and Ilediterra,nean
Southern.... 6184
Western
Eastern
• .
Sardinian
Austrian
Lombard 4734
North of Spain
Saragossa
Roman 5l

The' Calendar contains a notice at the head of the
Epsom programme that the City and Suburban, Great
Metropolitan, New Two Year Old Stakes, Walton Stakes,
and Prince of Wales's Stakes, will be run over the same
course as last year.