The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-09 00:00:00

POLAR EXPEDITIONS.

With regard to the various Polar Expeditions now
talked about, Dr. Wallace, of Liverpool, has written
to the Telefp'aph suggesting a new course to the Pole.
Ile has spent a summer in the polar regions,
and has gathered a good deal of information
from experienced whalers in the Arctic Seas. lle
thinks the best course to pursue is to
penetrate the thick belt of ice which lies along the
eastern coast of Greenland to what sailors call the
West Land, where a wide open sea has generally
been found skirting the Greenland shore. The belt
of ice presents the only difficulty, but in one season,
which will admit an open passage to the east
of Spitzbergen, a dozen will be found with
an open sea leading to the West land. If that
water is reached, a steamer could run north to its.
utmost limits in a few days ; a travelling party might
then leave the ship safely moored, and travel on the
land to the Pole, if land- extends so far. Such Fe
the main outlines of Dr. Wallace's scheme, which
deserves the attention of Arctic navigators.

BARD TO PLEASE.
Our American cousins, or let us say brethren, are
hard to please. We used to make them angry
because we held them up to ridicule. They are now
angry because we hold them up to admiration. They
were " riled " when Mrs. Trollope and Mr. Dickens
made fun of them, and now they are " riled "
because English visitors flatter them. They
complain that we are too " condescending,
that we go to them expecting to see people
of vulgar manners and slangy speech, and when we
find that it is not everyone who addresses us as
" old hogs," and that their youna ladies are not
accustomed to express their approval by such terms
as ‘, right smart," we are surprised, and manifest
our emotion in a patronising manner that is almost
more offensive than our insulting caricatures. This is
the burden of the last very interesting letter from the
New York correspondent of the Daily News. But, after
all, the Americans should see in our compliments at
least a sign of improvement. We are clumsy, no
doubt, and we ought to dissemble our love for our
relations better than we do. Perhaps if we had done
so we should not now be having the fragments of
the torn Clarendon-Johnson treaty thrown into our
faces,
THE IRISH CHURCH.
There is to be an important meeting next Tuesday
with reference to the Irish Church. It will be a
conference of the several dioceses of the. Church, and
will be attended by laymen as well as by clergymen.
Among the lay delegates are Lord James Butler,
Mr. Cecil Guinness, Sir E. Grogan, Mr. Hamilton,
Sir Joseph Napier, the Hon. D. Plunkett, the Master
of the Rolls Sir F. Shaw, the Vice-Chancellor, and
General. Dunne. In Monaghan a meeting of " all
denominations" has been held, at which the follow-
ing resolution was passed :--" That we shall con-
tinue to uphold the legislative Union between
Great Britain and Ireland so long as the inter-
national compact is respected and held inviolable by
the British Parliament ; but? should the fifth article
of the Treaty of Union—which is expressed to be
essential, fundamental, and perpetual—be repealed,
we shall be forced to regard the Union as virtually
disSoived.- After this, the "loyal Protestants" of
Ireland will never be able to reproach the Nationalists
for desiring to repeal the Union. Clearly, the
second have as much right to urge that change for
political, as the first have for ecclesiastical, reasons.