The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-17 00:00:00

1111 E SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 11, 1.869‘

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LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPT. 17, 18G9.

Whenever GARIBALDI has taken a pen in his hand
it may be very safely said that he has made an ass of
himself. His rhetoric is all rant and rhodomontade.
When armed with a sword JOSEPH GARIBALDI has,
time and again, shown himself to be a hero, equally
by sea and by land, like the Admiral-Generals of the
reign of ELIZABETH. Bat, exchanging that sword for
a goose quill, his capacities have always seemed to
dwindle down to the level of the bird from which the
latter was plucked. It is still more remarkable in
regard to one who, as a politician, sympathises per-
haps as heartily as any one among all his contem-
poraries with GARIBALDI, we mean VICTOR HUGO,
that alternately, by means of the pen, he has covered
himself with glory and with ridicule. The greatest
living poet of France, one of the greatest living poets
in Europe, VICTOR HUGO, is at the same time one
of the feeblest, one of the most spiteful, and one of
the most hysterical of politicians. His " Napol6on
le Petit" and his " Chatiments," but especially his
" Napoldon le Petit," seemed written, not with a
pen dipped in ink, but with the dagger of a mannikin
dipped in vitriol. His voice at these times seems to
rise into a scream. He is simply shrill and incoherent.
A master of eloquence both in prose, and verse, in re-
gard to themes in no way affecting the political
situation of the time in which he himself lives, VICTOR
HUGO can never touch upon anything in the re-
motest degree relating to the latter but what he at
once becomes wildly incomprehensible and
utterly ridiculous. Ho has " the gesticulations
of the Sibyl without the inspiration." The
dramatist who has given to the world " Her-
nark," " Cromwell," " Marion de Lorene,„" Le Roi
d'Amuse," " Marie Tudor," " Ruy Blas," " Lucrece
Borgia" and " Les Burgeous"—the Novelist of
"Notre Dame," of "Les Miserables," of "Les Travail-
leurs de la Mer"—the exquisite lyrist, the admirable
author of " Odes and Ballads," has nevertheless, at
intervals, and that not unfrequently, penned political
effusions so full of absurdity, bombast, and egregious
fatuity, that again and again he has rendered him-
self and his position before the world abso-
lutely preposterous. It is, as if at these
times, APOLLO were grinning through a
horse-collar, or performing on a penny-whistle.
Born at Besancon on 2Gth of February, 1802'
VICTOR HUGO is now far advanced in his
sixty-eighth year, and is, therefore, one might pre-
sume, old enough to know better than to degrade
himself and his indisputably resplendent ge.lius by a
repetition of these most fantastic performances. That
such is not the case with him, however, the Journal
des Debats has, just now, rather painfully, demon-
strated. In the columns of that journal there has
appeared a letter, addressed by VICTOR HUGO to the
members of a certain League of Peace and Liberty
about to assemble at Lousanne. It is not the
Three Tailors of Tooley-street, who are addressing
themselves to the world at large—it is the possessor
of one of the greatest intellects now living addressing
himself to the Three Tailors of Tooley-street. The
letter is the merest drivel throughout. It might al-
most have been written by GARIBALDI. It is alter-
nately a blatant roar and a strident shriek. Listen
to the Giant Poet turned into the Dwarf Politician :
—" Fellow Citizens of the United States of Europe"
—he roars you, like any sucking dove or unweened
gander—" Permit me to call you so, for the European
Federal Republic is founded de jure, and will soon
exist de facto. You place its existence on record by
your union—a sketch of unity—you are the begin-
ning of a great future. You confer upon me the hono-
rary chairmanship of your congres3. This touches
ino greatly. Your congress is something more than
a meeting of intellects—it is a kind of editorial com-
mittee for the drawing up of the future tables of the
law. An Wee can only exist on the condition of its
representing the mob ; you are that elite. You inti-
mate to those whom it concerns that war is a bad
thing ; that murder, even when it is glorious, boast-
ful, and royal, is infamous; that human blood
is precious ; that life is sacred : A solemn summons !
That a last war is necessary, alas ! I am not
among those that deny it. What will that war
be ? A war of conquest. What have we got to
conquer ? Liberty. The first duty of man, his first
want, his first right, is liberty. Civilisation invincibly
tends to bring about unity of language, unity of
weights and measures, unity of coin, and the fusion
of nations into humanity, which is supreme unity.
The synonymous term for concord is simplification ;
in the same way the synonymous term for wealth and
life is circulation. The first of servitudes is a frontier.
When a man talks of a frontier he means a fetter
(ligature). Cut the fetter, blot out the frontier,
remove the Custom-house man, cut away the sol-
dier; in other words, be free : peace follows ; and
a real, thorough peace henceforth, a peace once for
all, an inviolable peace, the normal condition of
labour, of exchange, of supply and demand, of pro-
duction and consumption, of the vast effort in com-
mon, of attraction, of manufactures, of the going
and coming of ideas, of the human flood and ebb.
Who has any interest in keeping up frontiers ? The
Kings, who divide in order to reign. A frontier im-
plies a sentry-box, a sentry-box implies asoldier. 'No
thoroughfare'—on ne passe pas, that is the watchword
of all privileges, prohibitions, censorship, tyrannies.
That frontier, that sentry-box, that soldier, are the
source of every calamity that affects mankind. The
King, being an exception, requires to protect himself ;
the soldier, in his turn, requires murder in order to
live. . Kings want armies, and armies want war.
Otherwise there is no reason why they should exist.
A strange thing—man consents to destroy man
without knowing why or wherefore. The art of des-
pots consists in dividing the people in halves, and
making one of those halves into an army. One half
oppresses the other. There are numberless pretexts for
war ; but only one cause—the army. Suppress the
army, you do away with war. But how can you sup -
press the army ? By suppressing despotism. See how
all things are connected with each other ! Abolish
parasitism' in all its shapes—civil lists, well-paid do-
nothingisms, salaried clergies, remunerated judge-
ships, aristocratic sinecures, gratuitous concessions
of public buildings, permanent armies ; blot out
all that, and you make Europe a present of ten thou-
sand millions a year. This one stroke of the pen
solves the problem of pauperism. Thrones object to
this simplification—hence a forest of bayonets.
Kings are all agreed on one point—to eternise war.
People fancy that they quarrel—no such thing ; they
are merely helping each other ; they supply the sol-
dier with his raison d'être. To eternise war is to
eternise despotism ; it is capital logic, but ferocious
logic. The Kings exhaust their patient —the
people—by bleeding him. There is a fierce
fraternity of swords, whence the enslaving
of men. Therefore, let us go straight at the
goal, -which I have called somewhere or other the
reabsorption of the soldier by the citizen. The day
when that recovery of possession shall have taken
place, when the people will not have beside itself that
hostile brother, the soldier, will be one ; it will feel
itself whole, loving, twice stronger in body and soul ;
and civilisation will mean harmony and labour,
and peace will grow as light does, by the ascend-
ing of the star—the star is liberty ! Let us,
then, raise the cry of Liberation,' which ,settles
everything. Citizens and brothers, 1 send you
my lenterCilllelaS Cilia and my cordial acquiescertve."

And this—ye gods !—is VICTOR Fluoo? This is the
creator of Quasimodo and of Esmeralda, the deli-
neator of Jean Valjean, the limner of Hans of Ice-
land, of Bug Jargal—No ! it is the water of " Na-
poleon to Petit"—it is, as one may say, the last
" tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, sig-
nifying nothing !"

THE operation of the Factory Acts, with their
supplement, the Workshops pct of 1807, is not an
unchequered success ; but, on the whole, the influence
of these measures must be pronounced decidedly
favourable. The reports of the Factory Inspectors
prove clearly that the interference of the Legislature
with the employment of young children has put an
end to much oppression, and has contributed greatly to
the spread of education in the manufacturing districts.
Many Acts of Parliament become worthless through
the hostility or evasion of those whose interests are
affected, but this is not the case with the Factory
Laws. The inspectors everywhere meet with " the
most ready and anxious desire in all quarters to
carry out the factory regulations fairly and fully."
Very few prosecutions occur, and these are of little
importance. It is creditable to manufacturers that
the attempts to evade the law are remarkably rare ;
that they are mostly found willing to fence their
moving machinery so as to prevent accidents, and, in
cases where they employ young children, to see that
the regulations respecting school attendance be com-
plied with. One result is, however, in some degree
to be deplored. The effect of these measures
has been to reduce the number of young children
who find employment. The general tonour of the
Factory Acts, we need hardly remark, was to enjoin
a maximum of labour in the case of boys and girls
under 13, and to stipulate that they should divide
their time between work and school. The employers
make few attempts to evade the law ; but they are
in many cases unwilling to engage children for whom
they are responsible. They earnestly support schools,
and respect the Acts, but they clear their own esta-
blishments of all " half-timers." It is unlawful for
them to employ children in one week unless
they have attended school in the preceding
week ; and this is a responsibility which
they think ought to fall on the parents.
When the first Factory Act was passed, there was a
great falling off, and though the number of half-
timers has since increased, it is still comparatively
small. This is unfortunate, for there are some occu-
pations which are suitable to young children ; but it
is not an unmixed evil. It is, at all events, better
that boys and girls under thirteen should not work
at all than that they should be subject to the wrongs
—the excess of labour and deprivation of edu-
cation—which preceded the Factory Acts.
Still it would be preferable that the children should
bring a little into the family exchequer, and get
their schooling at the same time; and the inspectors
have given much attention to the means of increas-
ing the number of half-timers. Their remarks on
this part of the subj ect are very curi-
ous and interesting. The leading stipula-
tion of the Factory Acts was that parents
should keep their children at school for three hours
daily on five days of the week. On Monday morn-
ing the employer had to ascertain whether this
demand had been complied with, which he did by
referring to the " school certificate book," a register
kept by the schoolmaster and sent to the works every
Monday. If it proved that any child had not attended
the required time the employer was not allowed to
give him work during that week. The offender
was sent back to school to make up his lost time.
Nothing could be easier than to carry out this
routine; but, though simple enough, it was incon-
venient to the masters. They could have no know-
ledge of what was going on at school until the
Monday morning, when they were confronted by the
certificate-book, and obliged to send away all de-
faulters. It is clear that the rejection of
half-a-dozen children might involve a very
awkward obstruction in some part of the
manufactory. The inspectors devised a plan ,
for overcoming this difficulty by informing
the employers every day of the children's
non-attendance at school. The schoolmasters, who
energetically co-operate in carrying out the Factory
Acts, send daily the names of all absentees
to the manager or overlooker of the mill, and
the defaulter is at once ordered from his
work to school, the employer thus losing one
clay's work only instead of five. This arrangement
appears troublesome, and so it undoubtedly is for a
time. But the difficulty does not last long, and for
an excellent reason. The parents, who are really to
blame for the non-attendance of their children, lose
a day's wages whenever a defaulter is rejected at the
mill. This sharp penalty speedily brings about reform.
Regular attendance soon becomes the rule.
There can be no doubt, however, that this system
really amounts to compulsory education, though it may
be, as the inspectors say, a compulsion into which
people are not driven but "slide." " They unconsciously
find themselves in it, and are satisfied when they
begin to see the benefits it confers." Unquestion-
ably ; but surely here is an end of the much talked of
non-intervention between parent and child. Com-
pulsory education cannot be regarded as a new
thing whilst a system of this kind is in full
play. More than. this, the inspectors are
all well satisfied with its operation ; they
believe that it will have some effect in increasing
the number of half-timers, and its good influence in
improving the quality of the education given to the
children is beyond doubt. Indeed, the result of
these stringent regulations is regarded as so excel-
lent that much consideration is given to the pro-
priety of extending their influence. At present
children in workshops and those in factories are
treated by two different Acts in different ways.
Factory children must attend school a certain time
each day, for five days in the week ; those
employed in workshops are, under the Workshops
Act, required to give ten hours attendance in -the
week, without reference to days. Many of these go
to school two days for five hours each and then work
full time the rest of the week. This is unsatisfactory.
The intention of the Legislature is not secured, the
education of these children is defective, and much
dissatisfaction is created amongst those who, under
the Factory Acts, are subject to more rigid restric-
tions. The inspectors' remedy is not to relax, but to
strengthen. They have got in the thin edge of the
compulsory wedge, and they uphold the policy of
driving it further. It need only be added that he
Workshop Act in general works less satisfactorily
than the Factory
acts, and that the inspectors pro-
pose to cure the evil by assimilating the former mea-
sure to the latter, and by widening the sphere of its
influence.

Very few additional coast disasters were reported
yesterday, but from foreign ports intelligence was received
of several wrecks. From Boick-sur-Mer it is reported that
the English barque Paragon, of Newcastle, and bound to
Shields, was driven ashore on Monday and was totally
wrecked. Eight of the crew—six men and two boys—were
drowned. The Golden Fleece, which foundered near Scilly,
has parted in the middle. A telegram from Arklow (Ire-
land) says the steamship llillerus (Emmerson, master) was
on Arklow Bank at 4.30 on Wednesday morning. The cargois
from Lisbon and Naples to Dublin and Glasgow.

On Wednesday Mr. W. Cunliffe Brooks addressed a
large meeting of electors and non-electors of East Cheshire
at Macclesfield. lie met with an enthusiastic reception, and
the expression of his opibions was received with great
cordiality. A number of questions were asked and answered,
and a resolution was adopted to the effect that the meeting
considered lir. Brooks a fit and proper person to represent
the division in Parliament.

The Levant Herald of Sept. 8 confirms the accounts
already received of the Grand Vizier's rejoinder to the Vice-
roy, although the publication of the text is still withhold.
The Herald adds that the Viceroy objects to the two condi-
tions respecting the Egyptian budgets and foreign loans, as
he considers they trench on his rights, and ho postpones hie
♦isit to Constantinople until these points are settled.

William Butler was again brought up on remand
before the Lancaster bench, on Wednesday, on the charge of
forging the name of a Lieutenant in the 17th Lancers to a
promissory note for £1,500 with intent to defraud Messrs.
llenuings and Co., bill discounters, of London. The pri-
soner was committed to take his trial at the next Lancaster
assizes.

THE FOREIGN OFFICE.

The Foreign Office agencies have, the Pall Mall Gazette
says, ceased to exist—at least in their original and moat
objectionable form. Mr. Alston, the chief clerk,
and Mr. Bidwell have handed over their agencies
to Mr. Stavely on an agreement that the lat-
ter gentleman is to pay Messrs. .Alston and Bidwell
a considerable sum annually; and Mr. Stavely has
resigned his post in the Foreign Office as head of the
French department. There are, therefore, no
longer clerk-agents actually in the Foreign Office, Mr.
Stavely having resigned his official appointment and as-
sumed the duties of a private agent for his clients and
for the late clients of Mr. Alston and Mr. Bidwell. The
suspicion of improper influences at work in regard to
appointments and promotions will, however, never cease
until all pecuniary connection between Foreign Office
clerks and these agencies is entirely put an end to.

THE SECRETARY OF THE OVEREND .A.AID
CO.'S 'SHAREHOLDERS COMMITTEE.

Mr. Registrar LTazlitt had before him on Thursday
the case of Oswald Howell, ihe bankrupt was late
accountant to Overend and Co. estate, and also
afterwards secretary to Overend and Co.'s Shareholders
Committee. He was described as an accountant, of
34, King•street, Cheapside, and now of no occupation.
His debts amounted to about £3,433, and he ascribed his
liabilities to having become security to Mr. Lyle for a
large amount. The creditors had now come upon him.
There were liabilities on bills of exchange, and one to the
Protection Company to the amount of £3OO odd. The
bankrupt, together with Dr. Thom, who was so active
in the Overend, Gurney, and Co. prosecution, was
one of the complainants in an indictment for libel,
preferred on Wednesday before the Lord Mayor at the
Mansion House. This was a first examination, and for
the choice of assignees. The choice had been adjourned
by Mr. Registrar Hazlitt from the 2nd inst., for the pur-
pose of enabling Dr. Thom to adduce further evidence in
support of a proof tendered for £OOO as co-trustee of
the fund in the course of being raised for
carrying on proceedings against Overend, Gurney,
and Company, which has since been satisfied, and, there-
fore, th e proof was expunged by consent. After the ad-
admission of several proofs, Mr. Alfred Kitley, of
Lawrence-lane, merchant, was appointed creditors'
assignee, and the 26th of November next was f. xecl for the
examination and discharge sitting to be held before Mr.
Commissioner Winslow, to which time the bankrupt was
granted renewed protection from arrest..