The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times, in commenting upon the tendency of Irish
statistics to deal with a shadowy and melancholy past,
instead of with a hopeful and practical future, is at a loss
to discover in what respect Ireland and the Irish are at a
disadvantage as compared with this country. Every
Irishman on coming to maturity has all England, and
everything made y England, or belonging to England,
before him. Indeed, England is much more open to him
than his own country is, for England is the most open
and hospitable country in the world, and Ireland, without
exception, the most close and inhospitable. There is no

country pretending to be civilised more jealous of
strangers, more exclusive in its manners and

code, and more ready for any extremities that can be
excused by the maxim of " Ireland for the Irish." No
Englishman can venture to enter the Irish labour market,
to bid for an Irish farm, or to risk his money in Irish
enterprise, except under rare and exceptional circum-
stances.. Exclusiveness, and consequent non-improve-
ment, are the incurable vice of the tribal system and the
n`yinze of families and factions into which it developes.
The sentiment of such a system is always retrospective,
always recurring to some presumed original, some
imaginary inheritance, and traditional wrongs. If
it has no hope, it is because it refuses to share
the hopes of all the world around, and prefers ever to
brood over a buried and misrepresented past. The
Englishman, particularly, has long since renounced all
dreams and all birthrights except the use of the powers
and opportunities Heaven has given him. He also has to
leave his borne, and seek a livelihood and friends in

..... towns, cities, and distant colonies. Our two million
Australian colonists are chiefly English. But whether
the Englishman goes or stays at home he offers a
welcome to the Irishman, and gives him free access to the
soil, the wages, and all the employments of this country.
The English have gone through disabilities which
happened to be serious in their case, because they often
could have done what the law denied them. But our
social and statistical societies don't meet and solemnly
advise the Englishman to sit down and howl, just
because his great-great-grandfather was not the member
of a corporation or a privileged company, or was hit by
the Corporation and Test Act, or was not allowed to
send a ship to India or China, or could not, with any
money, obtain a freehold or even a lease within twenty
miles of his home. We don't think of the past here,
with its interminable grudges. We look to the future,
and we believe in a Providence that will befriend any-
body who makes the best use he can of his lot, whatever
it is, and of his openings and opportunities, whatever he
he may find in that future which is the common property
of t.s all.

The Post remarks that the Manchester experiment
deserves attention as an attempt to give a practical illus-
tration to two political ideas quite new to this country.
The first is that of the preliminary selection by a poli-
tical party of a candidate who shall be thenceforth
adopted as the only representative to be supported by
that party. The second idea of which the Manchester
Liberals have given us an illustration is that of the Ballot,
and in this respect they must be held to have done a good
service from whatever point of view the matter is regarded.
So much interest attaches at the present moment to the
subject of secret voting, and it is so important to
gain as clear an idea as possible of its pro-
bable working in this country, that a few real
facts on which a hold can be laid are very acceptable,
and some such facts the proceedings at Manchester cer-
tainly furnish. The choice between Mr. Milner Gibson
and Mr. Ernest Jones was taken by means of the Ballot,
carried out upon the Australian principle ; that is to say,
each voter was required to strike off from a list containing
the names of the two quasi candidates the name of that
one for whom he did not intend to vote, and then to place
the list in an envelope and to drop it into n ballot-box.
The provision of numbering, to which we have previously
alluded as in force in the colony of Victoria to
snake a subsequent scrutiny, to be taken if required, was
omitted, and there was, therefore, no possible means
of connecting the voter with his vote. Thus the
choice was conducted by ballot pure and simple,
and the result has been that, although there was
a good deal of feeling on both sides, and although as
many as 11,415 electors recorded their opinions, every-
thing was carried out with the most perfect order and
decorum. To that extent, therefore, the experiment
must be taken to be in favour of the system of secret
voting ; but of course, in this instance, there were not
the same probabilities of bribery or of corruption of other
sorts as exist in ordinary elections, and therefore it is not
conclusive. This much, however, at least, the experi-
ment has shewn, that secret voting is not incapable of
being understood and carried out in an English consti-
tuency, and that is no small matter to have clearly esta-
blished with regard to a subject which is at once so novel
and so important.
The Daily News remarks upon the difficulties of the
Opposition in choosing a leader in the Upper House. Who
can lead? The Marquis of Salisbury and Lord Carnarvon
are out of the question. Mr. Disraeli's three dukes.
shadows of great names, are not to be thought of for a
different reason. Nowadays dukes do not lead. Dux a
non doecndo is the true political etymology of the title.
Unless the House of Lor,ls is to receive recruits from the
Commons, Lord Cairns is the only possible man. Mr.
Disraeli is not likely just now to alter his mind on
the subject of a peerage. Mr. G athorne Hardy
could not be spared from the House of Commons. There
remain Lord Stanley and Lord John Manners, whose
elevation now to the Upper Chamber would only anticipate
the course of events. Lord Stanley's leadership would do
something to restore the intellectual balance between the
two parties in the House of Lords. But under his guidance
the Conservative party would be very doubtfully Con-
servative. Lord John Manners, though without force of
character or intellect, is personally amiable ; he is fluent
in speech, and not without readiness in reply ;
He would do well enough. If Lord Stanley and Lord
John Manners both elect to remain in the Commons, the
choice will lie between some duke's coronet and Lord
Cairns's brains. The Conservatives do not like parvenus
in the House of Lords, though they are obliged to put up
with them in the House of Commons. If this feeling has
way, a ducal rOi fain(ant—Marlborough will do as well as
Buckingham, and Richmond as well as either, with Lord
Cairns as Mayor of the Palace—may be the form taken by
a compromise between blood and brains.

The Telegraph comments upon the unsatisfactory state
of the volunteer arrangements, in consequence of the re-
fusal of Mr. Cardwell to increase the capitation grant.
A mutiny amongst the volunteers would be a most serious
affair, and should a rage for unreasoning reduction
lead the War Office to be penny wise as regards our citizen
army, while it remains pound foolish as regards our regu-
lar troops, we may witness in a few months the dissolu-
tion of our volunteer army. But we cannot, without fur-
ther inquiry, believe it possible that Mr. Cardwell has not
something to say for a decision which at first sight ap-
pears indefensible. The great majority of the experienced
and able colonels of volunteers have declared that the pre-
sent capitation grant is not sufficient to pay the neces-
sary expenses of each corps ; Mr. Cardwell, relying
on some anonymous authority, asserts that it is.
Lord Elcho, in the name of the volunteers, demands full
inquiry ; and full inquiry is their due. We require some-
thing more than the ipse dixit of any War Secretary
before we refuse to our favourite and cheapest force any-
thing which its best men declare absolutely essential for
its efficiency. But the question goes much farther. We
have to inquire, not merely whether the capitation grant
suffices for the volunteer force as it is, but whether it
suffices for the force as it ought to be. Are there
no improvements in the condition and circumstances
of the volunteers, which are possible with an increased
grant, and impossible with the present allow-
ance ? We want genuine, not mock soldiers
—men who can, if called upon, march out and camp
out if ordered against the foe. We want a real,
serviceable sword and shield— then gild them if you like
at the hilt, and engrave the blade if you please with
verses from the Bible, pretty national mottoes, and
filagree work of dainty device. But if you expect your
volunteers to be all this, to sacrifice the time needful for
such perfection in drill, you must not put your bands in
their pockets. No officer or private should be forced to
give anything beyond his time ; and that is in itself a
large donation, quite sufficient for our needs. The Govern-
ment, not the officers or privates, should defray all the
expenses required to make the whole body a well-drilled
army of fighting men. If the present capitation grant
can do that, well and good ; if, as experienced and
patriotic volunteer leaders affirm, it cannot, then let it be
increased.

The Star thinks that Scotland did well for the Liberal
cause at the general election, and that the Government
have recognised her claims to consideration. Respecting
the work that lies immediately before the Home Secre-
tary, the Star observes : As . Mr. Bruce, however,
has pledged himself to bring in a bill to deal with the
criminal classes, he might find something worth imitation
in the Scotch mode of administering the criminal law.
Much of the confusion and uncertainty which prevails at
present results from the want of a public prosecutor. If
there was an officer charged with the duty of investigating
all charges of a criminal nature, and of prosecuting the
accused before the proper tribunals, a certainty and accu-
racy would be imparted to the administration of
justice which nothing else can give., The recent improve.
ments in the criminal cock have defined with great accu-
racy the various offences ; but the application of the law
is left very much to chance in the case of those graver
crimes which cannot be disposed of before a magistrate.
It is too frequently found that a criminal escapes simply
because the prosecutor has failed to get up the evidence
in the manner which the law very properly requires. He
has employed sonic solicitor who has more profitable
work to attend to, and who in his turn at the eleventh
hour seizes on a counsel at haphazard, and the case is
bungled amongst them. A public prosecutor, while
enjoying all the advantage of the assistance of the police
force in getting up evidence, would still be a functionary
entirely apart from that body, using them as servants, but
not permitting them to acquire the mastery either over the
cases to be pushed to a conclusion, or over the evidence
to be submitted. That observation of habitual criminals
to which the Home Secretary refers is in every-day prac-
tice in the great towns of Scotland, without any other legal
provision than the employthent of judicious detectives, and
having a public prosecutor ready to begin his researches
within half an hour after a crime is reported at his office.


_ ,
t•-•,..J': • 04.0

HER MAJESTY.

OSBORNE, Jan. 25.'"
Her Majesty walked in the grounds this morn-
ing, accompanied by Princess Beatrice.

Princess Louise, attended by Lady Churchill,
walked in the grounds.
Prince Leopold also walked out.
The Right llon. William and Mrs. Gladstone left
oAorne to-day.

POLICE IN TEL T,IGENCE—This Day.

MARLBOROTTGII-STREET.

A DISORDERLY TAVERN.---A CURIOUS SCESE.-31r.
Jahn Hutchins, of the White Lion, Hemmings-row, 3.1)"
peered before Mr. Tyrwhitt, to answer the complaint Of
Inspector Steel, of the C division, of unlawfully end
knowingly p-rmitting prostitutes to assemble in his house•
Sergeant Leech, 17 0, sail that on the 13th inst. he
visited the defendant's house, and in a room up stairs he
saw nine soldiers, four of them drunk, and two of them
pulling about two prostitutes. There were eight other
prostitutes In the room, two of them drunk, .and there were
four couples dancing, and a man that was drunk 105
also dancing on a table. On another table a man was
sitting playing on a concertina. On his leaving the house
the prostitutes were got out, but on his visiting the house
again he - found three prostitutes there, and a soldier
bathing the head of a man who had been fighting. On
first entering the house he told the defendant that
he had ten or a dozen prostitutes in front of
the bar, and thought he had better get them out of the
house, but they remained for nearly an hour afterwards,
and on getting outside the house there was very great dis-
order caused by them.

Mr. Tyrwhitt fined the defendant £5 for permitting
prostitutes to assemble in his house, and the other sum-
mons against the defendant for permitting drunkenness in
his house would stand over three weeks, that the poli Co
might report how the house was conducted in the mean-
time.

CAUTION TO CABMEN AND CABOWNERS.—AIfred Vine,
cabdriver, was charged with working a horse in an unfit
condition.

The defendant was seen to put his horse on the cab-
stand in the Haymarket, and it being observed that the
horse was very weary it was examined, and found to have
two broken knees and several bad sores about it, and in
very bad condition.

George Young, an officer of the Royal Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said that the horse We°
totally unfit for working.
The defendant said that the horse had been in the stable
ten days through its knees, and the veterinary surgeon
advised that it should bo taken out to reduce the swelling
in its legs.

A veterinary surgeon said ho advised the horse should
be taken out for light work, as he considered it would do
him good.

Mr. Tyrwhitt said he had heard all sorts of evidence
from "vets," as they were called, and it certainly had not
tended to increase his respect for them. The defendant
would have to pay 40s. or a month, and if he worked the
horse again he would be sent to prison, and the society's
officer could take out a summons against the owner.