The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-09 00:00:00

-SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times is glad to find that the impending debate on
the Alabama claims in the House of Commons
has been indefinitely postponed. To bring up again
the late tedious, troublesome, and irritating contro-
versy at the present time could serve no good purpose.
The discussion would be most inopportune, both as
regards the period of the session and the temper
of the House. We may say also the temper of the
public on both sides of the Atlantic, for, unless we are
much mistaken, there is a general feeling of weariness
with the subject, and a belief that if it is ever to be
resumed with success a considerable period must be allowed
to intervene. There has been so much party feeling mixed
up with it in America, and so much national feeling lately
provoked on this side, that a new negotiation would
begin under the most disadvantageous conditions. When
Mr. Motley thinks that the feeling on his own
side of the ccean is such that a treaty consistent
with the honour of England will satisfy the Ameri-
cans, ho may address the Queen's Government for
new negotiations. But it is right the world should know
that only sack a treaty would Lave a chance of acceptance.
There is nothing we desire more than to live in peace and
goodwill v ith a nation that speaks our language, and is in
so many ways akin to ourselves. But there is now less
than ever any disposition to sacrifice the interests and
dignity of the country for the satisfaction of unjust pre-
tensions ; and the public will not approve any such
eagerness to negotiate as may seem to forebode weakness
when the negotiation comes.
The Standard says that the history of the Life Peerages
Bill of Earl Russell, to which the House of Lords has
added the final chapter, is curious and instructive. It was
received upon its introduction with general , but mild
applause. Exception was taken to some of its details,
but the principle was pronounced a sound one by nearly
all the Peers who expressed any opinion upon the subject,
and the judgment of the press was even more favourable
to the ex-Whig leader. We were almost alone in con-
demning the principle, and in asserting that no modifica-
tion the bill might receive in committee could makeit any-
thing but a most impolitic:measure, fraught withmischievous
consequences. By the time the bill came on for a secondread-
ing the gentle enthusiasm which it had kindled had well-
nigh died out. The principle was s till hardly contested, but
the details were severely criticised, and the opinion
gained ground that at tl e best le jeu ne valait pas la
chandelle, and that the admission of life peers would
neither strengthen the House nor put it in harmony with
the nation. As Lord Malmesbury well said, to the vast
majority of men the great attraction and value of a peerage
is the fact that they can hand it down to their descendants,
and thus perpetuate as it were their names and the
memory of such services as they have rendered the com-
monwealth. The bill was thrown out, and we congratu-

late their lordships upon having rejected a measure which
would have added nothing to their power or efficiency,
which was unsound in theory and not even recommended
by the existence of any evil or inconvenience which it was
desirable to find a remedy for, which nobody asked for,
and with -which nobody would have been satisfied.
The Daily Noes declares that the time is comirg,
perhaps it Las already arrived, when it may be necessary
for the country to interpose in an authoritative manner
between the two Houses of Parliament. The way in which
the Lords have dealt with the Irish Church Bill threatens
to produce a legislative dead-lock. To pass it in its
present shape, which is substantially that in which it will
leave the Upper Chamber on Monday next, would be to
break the promises made by Liberal members on
the hustings, and to reverse the policy which
at the general election the nation solemnly
sanctioned. The Lords do not claim any authority to
resist the will of the people. They prudently waive their
right as a co ordinate branch of the Legislature, respon-
sible only to their own consciences. But in doing so,
they put forward pretensions even more untenable. They
affect to understand the mind of the country better thai
the country itself does, and to be more truly represen•
tative of it than its chosen representatives. The people
at large have to declare whether they have confidence in
the Government and the House of Commons, or in the
Opposition and the House of Lords, and whether Mr.
Gladstone and Mr. Bright, or the Marquis of Salisbury
and the Earl of Malmesbury, are the true inter-
preters of its opinions upon the Irish Church Bill.

They have to decide something more than this particular
question. • The heresy that the expression of the will of
the people is to be looked for somewhere else than in a
Parliament newly chosen for that very purpose must be
discountenanced. For once, public meetings may be
necessary to protest against government bypublic meetings.
The nation has resolved not to allow the religious
inequality in Ireland which the amendments of the Lords
restore ; nor to permit the confusion worse confounded
which the plan of concurrent endowment would bring
about. The sooner and the more effectually it makes its
will known to the Lords, the better it will be, not only for
that august, but not always very discerning, assembly, but
for Ireland and the Empire.
Thanks to Lord Carington and Mr. Grenville Murray,
says the Herald, we have just had a peculiarly striking
example of that Americanisation of our institutions which
some politicians regard with such undisguised aversion,
and others with such unqualified admiration. On a
review of the whole affair, we cannot ray that any one
of the actors in it comes out exactly as his friends
would desire, or as believers in the typical Engliah
gentleman would wish. A scurrilous article in a weekly
newspaper, causing a midnight fracas in a Pall Mall
club-house, and winding up with a free fight in a
police-court, in the presence of magistrate, counsel,
policemen, and spectators, is a sequence of events as
remarkable as it is discreditable to most parties
concerned.. The scandal may be borne by awerent per-
sons in different proportions, but for tLe credit of Eng-
lishmen as a law-obeying nation ws trust it will be long
cl
before we have again to chro,a e such another scene as
m ade one of the principal metropolitan police-courts on
Wednesday last a misrature edition of Donnybrook fair
time, or Hyde psrk during a great Reform demonstra-
tion. But the example thus set is by far the most un-
satisfactory feature in a peculiarly unsatisfactory story. -I
Granted that those who sight to capture the deed box
in the interest of the Queen's Messenger were the origina-
tors .c Lhe disturbance. it was surely possible for those
who disapproved of their violence to have frustrated
their object by cutting off their retreat through
the door, without engaging in a lawless struggle
in the very pretence of the magistrate. We can
make allowances for surprise, and, it may be, for indigna-
tion, but noblesse oblige, and those who went to support
Lord Carington should have remembered that from men
in their position society is entitled to expect something
better than an exaggerated reproduction of the tactics of
roughs and rowdies. If a party of Whitcchapel raga-
muffins had indulged themselves at. the Thames police-
court, in contending after their manner with dock
labourers or foreign sailors, the scandal would have been
quite bad enough. But it is infinitely worse when the
parties to so unseemly a scuffle have not only decent
coats on their backs but " gentle blood " in their veins,
The Post, in commenting on the main features of Mr.
ilundella's bill, says that it often seems to be, and at the
moment often is, to the advantage of the trades unions
that the cost of production should not be diminished. The
case of house building, and, still more, of cottage building,
affords a strong illustration of the possible position. It is
a matter of even national importance just now that
cottage building should be- cheapened as much as possible,
and the lessening of the cost is prevented by the action of
the trades unions, whose arbitrary dictum forbids brick-
layers to use machine-made bricks, and who have especially
marked with their anathema the large hollow bricks
which have been brought into use with such marked
success in Paris, and even upon one or two noblemen's
estates in this country, Against all action of this descrip-
tion, and against interference with modes of working and
production, the industry of the country, whether repre-
sented by capitalists or workmen, must be thoroughly pro-
tected, and any new legislation which touches the subject
at all cannot be confined to the grievances and disad-
vantages of the unions alone. It must cover the entire
organisation of the productive powers of the kingdom.
It has been said that the ratio of increase,
as between ourselves and foreign producers, has
been materially altered to the disadvantage of this
country • that other nations, and Belgium remarkably,
have got-their foot into markets of which we have hitherto
been the monopolists ; and that the influence of strikes,
upheld by unions and union funds, have so frequently
arrested the circulation and action of capital as to produce
much impoverishment and national loss. Equitable legis-
lation and a timely understanding consequent upon it
may yet save the working men from the consequences of
the further development of this system, and it is to be
hoped that the Government will carry out their under-
taking with as little delay as possible.
The Star observes that each season offers its peculiar
temptation to the fool, and one of the most mischievous
temptations which hot weather offers to the fool who
happens to travel by rail is at least as strong this year as
ever. While people are crying out against directors
because the foot-boards of the carriages are too far from
the ground, or too far from the floor of the carriage, or
because the platforms are too high, or too low, or too
narrow, you may see on every line in the country a much
more fatal and certain source of danger, for which the
passengers themselves are a great deal more to blame than
anybody else. Every other time you enter a railway
refreshment-room, the chances are a hundred to one
that you find the guard of a train drinking, and
always- at the expense of some passenger with
more money and hospitality than wit. Blame the
guard, if we will ; but the fatuous traveller wlio does his
best to steal away the brains of the man who carries the
lives of a trainful of people in his hand deserves blame
fully as great. A philosophic observer travelling up to
town a few evenings ago noticed that one guard had no
less than six glasses of beer, paid for by others, drunk by
himself, iu a journey of two hours and a half. Observers
of a less philosophic turn of mind may be excused for a
feeling of pretty warm indignation against this hospitable
imbecility. And, after all; if travellers will insist on
playing the fool, it would be just as well for the railway
authorities to issue special warnings to servants in respon-
sible posts. We should know what to think of a company
who should place a nine-gallon crikk of strongest ale on
the engine, and another in the guard's van of every train.
Yet this is just what tkegis4iaonals,l9 generality of gay
moisnarisMacikk_

THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE AND HIS
CREDITORS.

A t judges' Chambers on Thursday two summonses arising
out of the Duke of Newcastle's affairs came before Mr.
Baron Martin in the action " Padwick v. Beyfus," taken
out by the defendant, that the feigned issue be delivered,
and that a commission be granted to examine the Duke of
Newcastle at Homburg.
Mr. g. B. Abrahams, for Messrs. Beyfus, said there
had been performed at Guildhall, in the caseof " Padwick
v. Peters," what he should call a " two-act farce." In that
farce Mr. Hankey and Mr. 11. James were .the principal
actors. The other issues were delayed until that issue
had been tried, and as he contended the case had not been
tried he should proceed.

Mr. Tidy, on the part of Mr. Padwick, said the onjy
object was delay, in the hope that the Duke of Newcastle
might be made a bankrupt.
Mr. Baron Martin appointed a time to bear the two
summonses. Mr. Abrahams had a right to say the case
had not been tried.

Mr. Abrahams said that he should show that, in fact,
there was no trial of the issue. Order accordingly.

A CURIOUS WILL CASE.

.....---....

In the Probate Court, on Thursday, a case well known by
name— " Sharpe v. Cuunans "—was before Lord Penzance
and a special jury. The case has often been before the
court as to the question of domicilage. The testator, who
was born of Portuguese parents, and in that country,
was sent to Brixton to school. He became insane, and
died in an asylum after making a will, and the question
was whether he was sane at the time he executed the
document. the will was opposed by an aunt, and as the
question of domicilage had been settled, the plaintiffs
yesterday sought to propound the will.
Dr. Spinks, Q.C., and Dr. Tristram, were for the will,
and Dr. Deane, Q.C., and -Mr. Inderwick were for the
defendant.

Dr. James Ramsey Atkins, Grove House, Stoke New-
ington, from 1840 to 1862 was proprietor of a private
lunatic asylum. In 1840 Mr. Crispin came to reside as a
patient, and stayed till he died in December 1862. Before
he came to the asylum he resided with his aunt, and often
committed acts of violence. Whilst in the asylum he
was occasionally vialent. In 1850 his mind had materially
improved, and he was in a condition to make his will.
The testator knew that his father had died n 1 let him a
deal of property. He often talked about his will, and said
that he should leave witness a legacy. At that time the
deceased was apparently of sound mind. H:s insanity
was of a peculiar character, and on altern ate days he
seemed to be sane and insane ; and when he appeared
in the latter state he was of a very obstinate disposition.
Dr. Southey saw the testator some short time prior to the
execution of the will. Dr. Jones and Mr. Watney,
solicitor, came on the day in question. In December
1858 there was a commission to inquireinto the state of the
testator's mind.

By Dr. Deane.: In 1856 be improved for some time ;
but not till his death, as, in witness's belief, he committed
suicide. He was put into a straight waistcoat when he
was violent, and was in the habit of putting his finger
down his throat to induce vomiting, and this so weakened
the vessels of the stomach that he vomited blood.
By the Judge : Believed that the testator knew that it
he did not eat he would die, and he wished to do so.
Other evidence having been taken,
Dr. Deane addressed the jury, contending that at the
time of making the will the testator was insane.
The jury took this view of the matter, and the will was
ordered to be revoked.