The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-29 00:00:00

-SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC 3'OUENALB,

The Times, after remarking that three eases of murder,
two of them aggravated by suicide, were recorded in its
Monday's impression, asks what are we to say or think of
the state of our civilisation when this catalogue of savage
crimes is contained in a single mo:ning's news ? If we
went bank only the space of the past week, we could add
two or three other horrors to the list. It is abundantly
evident that the most brutal and ferocious passions still
rage in our midst ; that we have not extirpated the wild
beasts of the human heart; and that with all our progress
and social improvement, the radical vices of human nature
are unaltered. We suppose the intense power of
fascination these crimes possess is due in some degree to
their revelation of the terrible capacities for evil in the
human heart. Men gaze at them as down an abyss, from
which they are not so far removed as to escape a shudder
at the prospect. But one practical conclusion will
undoubtedly be drawn from these outbursts of savagery.
It is that the time has not come when we can dispense
with the stern means of self-defence which the instinct of
society has provided- against murder. A French writer of
eminence had just avowed himself an advocate of the abo-
lition of capital punishment when the Pantin crime
supplied a commentary on his treatise, and the Paris mob
was all but illustrating his theory by an example of Lynch
Law. Another paragraph in the same impression
appears to establish a precedent singularly inopportune at
such a moment. The sentence of death on Michael Atkins,
a wife murderer, has been commuted to a twelvemonths'
imprisonment. •We can hardly conceive a course more
likely to undermine the fear of justice in the criminal class.
The law must be at once justly and firmly administered if
it is to exert its due influence over them, and in this case
they will be obliged to conclude either that the Government
is so weak as to punish wife murder with twelve months'
imprisonment, or so unjust as to aggravate the unhappy
position of a man falsely convicted of such a crime by
punishing him for being innocent. There are many indica-
tions around us that this is no time for relaxing either our
private, our social, or onr public vigilance.
The Standard says that setting aside the most exciting
incidents of war, there is hardly any adventure to which
the most adventurous among us are liable so thrilling as a
great shipwreck. The passengers who have been saved
from the Carnatic will not readily forget the events of
that terrible day described in the letter from Captain
Jones, even though the less of the vessel was not attended
by all the elements of terror which are sometimes com-
bined in one disaster at sea. It has been a boast of the
Peninsular and Oriental Company that though they
have often lost steamers, they have hardly ever lost
a passenger. This proud declaration must be made no
more in future, for a loss under circumstances which
would, one might have imagined, have been peculiarly
favourable for saving all hands, has been marked by what
the captain very justly describes as "a most deplorable loss
of life." To give an opinion on the management of the
vessel would as yet be premature. The Board of Trade
proposes to undertake an investigation, and when the
various officers on board at the time are examined it will
be more possible than it is at present to come to a con-
clusion concerning the manner in which the ship was run
ashore.

The Post declares that France and England are the
foster mothers of Belgium, and nowhere could their citizen
soldiers more appropriately meet than in the little king-
dom which own its creation and existence to them. The
Belgian fetes have hitherto been held in Brussels, and
have not been of an international character. Grand rifie-
shooting meetings have usually formed marked features of
these fetes. It is due to the men of Liege that this year an
international character has been impressed upon the
Tir. The riflemen of all countries have been
freely invited to Belgium, and a motley assemblage
of foreign riflemen have assembled at Liege. As exponents
of personal and national freedom, of patriotism and spon-
taneous devotion, their gathering together is significant of
the tendency of modern thought and aspiration. Year
after year the exchange of visits between the volunteers of
England and the riflemen of Belgium takes place notwith-
standing the difficulties and discouragements in the way.
At no time did it seem probable that an established annual
custom would be developed out of there somewhat desul-
tory international gatherings, and yet their uninterrupted
recurrence points to the possibility of this end being ar-
rived at.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, says the .Daily News,
has been addressing his constituents—we mean shepherd-
ing his flock—at Folkestone. His Grace's harangues, how-
ever, are usually so much more indirectly political than
directly religious that it is natural to slide into the lan-
guage of the hustings and of the public meeting in describ-
ing them. On Friday he discoursed of the inestimable
blessings, not of pure religion, but of political estaiblish-
ments of religion, with a gusto which would have delighted
Lord Thurlow himself. The Archbishop intimated that
there might be dangers ahead, inasmuch as his Dissenting
brethren had assumed a somewhat aggressive attitude
which would possibly pass through the several degrees of
comparison into more aggressive and most aggressive. But
the Archbishop does not intend to be quietly superseded.
He exhorts his clergy not to allow of interference with
them as churchmen. The truth is, that Dr. Tait is more
afraid than he would have the world believe. If he thought
the irreconcileable opposition so contemptible as he tries to
persuade himself it is, he would say rather less about it.
Apparently he can think, at any rate in public he speaks, of
little else. The course he takes is not very prudent,
We cannot hope that the Archbishop of Canterbury will
heed the counsels of soberer men. He is two much in
earnest, his Erastianism is too fanatical to allow of his
resting tranquil. But unless he learn wisdom, his Primacy
may prove as disastrous to the Church of which he is the
Chief Pastor as the Papacy of Pius IX. threatens to prove
to the Church of Rome. Ecclesiastically, the two men are
the antipodes one of the other; but they have this feature
in common, that each is under the despotism of a single
idea, which blinds him to the perception of everything
lying around and beyond it.

The Herald thinks that briefly summarised, the charges
of inefficiency and lack of vitality which Commander
Dawson has brought against the naval Church come to
this. In the first place, there is no proper provision made
for religious superintendence and instruction. The Church
to be a really living power must be adequately officered.
How is it possil le that her salutary influence should be
felt in a state of things in which only 70 ships in her
Majesty's navy have chaplains at all ; 222 being utterly
unprovided with any kind of clerical ministration ! Why
should this be, naturally enough asks the Contem-
porary Reviewer, seeing that an annual sum of
£33,364, or 10s. 7d. a head, is set aside every year
by the Admiralty for religious pin-poses ? There
are in fact 70 chaplains to teach 52,675 men ; or, excluding
the 7,500 Roman Catholics, about one clergyman to every
&15 adults, " distributed," it must be remembered, " over
292 vessels, whilst the chaplain's ministrations are con-
fined to the crews of the 70 largest ships." In other words,
notwithstanding the considerable sums demanded for the
propagation of religion afloat, " three-fourths of the fleet
never obtain an atom of clerical ministration." That the
blame does not rest with the naval chaplains we are quite
ready to believe; but that the fault is "the fault of those
in authority" is but scant palliation for its existence." " I
have no Communion-table," writes " A Naval Chaplain,"
"and many of the men have neither Bibles nor Prayer-
books, there being only a small number supplied."
Further, a chaplain tells us that his stipend is only
£lB2 10s. a year, and that on that sum he has two esta-
blishments to keep up—his mess and his home. Again, we
learn from the same quarter. that " a chaplain's status is
such that he is often treated as an inferior officer by a
lieutenant." Putting all these facts together, we can
scarcely be surprised if the Church in the navy is in a
most unsatisfae;,'s-ory condition. We have said enough to
direct at_te;i' tion to what is a crying abuse, and to what
invol3e6 a whole mass of mismanagement. It is to be
linised that the matter will not be allowed to drop.
Nothing more says the Telegraph than the order of the
Pfivy Council, published in Tuesday's Gazette, would be
needed to tell us that cattle plagues have not yet quite
'left our border ; for we have hardly succeeded in effectually
stanikeng out the rinderpest, before we are called upon to
face another, though, fortunately, a less formidable com-
plaint. It has been known for some time past that what
is termed "foot and mouth disease" has been spreading
?over large portions of England and Scotland; and experi-
enced agriculturists who knew its highly. contagious nature,
and the difficulty of effecting isolation in so densely-pop,_
lateci a country as England, watched the progress of
the plague with very excusable alarm. Fortunately we
are in less danger from such an outbreak, now,
than had it occurred before the rinderpest taught us expe-
rience, and called effective machinery for suppression
lastninto
play. The Contagious Diseases (Animals)
session, has provided certain regulations applicableas to such
a case as the present ; and these can be at once put in.
force
by order of the Privy Council, whenever the necessity for
action has become manifest. The circumstance that the.
1 articular disease is highly contagious is serious enough;
but, is thc opinion of the best veterinary authorities, the
complaint has now assumed a malignant type in several
districts ; and it is that circumstance, we believe,
which has determined the Government to take ener-
getic action. One fact alone sufficiently attests the
imperative necessity for active measures; within the
past week, the complaint has affected nearly five times
as many animals as it had affected in each of the five
preceding weeks. The restrictions must be carried out
sweepingly and unflinchingly—not for the good of any one
class, but for the benefit of the whole community. The
owners of home cattle have only now to second with a will
the initiative of the Privy Council, and the "stamping
out " process will follow the disclosures with a completeness
that axst soon bring the threatened plague within easily
manageable limits ; sparing, we surely believe, the million
from the terrible inflictions of a scarcity, the agriculturist;
of all ranks from a continued calamity which must entail
far more accumulated loss than the effective remedy tow
..ofuctO.