The Sun.
London, England, 1869-08-24 00:00:00

Eli' LIT or TUT, S 2LXO JOUaNALS.

The Wham refers to the narrow escape of the French
Lion King, and observes that the subduing of wild beasts,
IN men have learnt from Van Amburgh, is merely the
result of merciless thrashing when they are young. The
Application of the heavy cudgel, of the iron bar, or of the
red-hot ramrod on their tender limbs leaves an impres-
,ilon which the threatening glance of him who wields Limn
weapons keeps for ever fresh in the brute's memory.
How is it that civilisation can reconcile itself to the
eebibition of "lion-kings," "lion brides," "lion-tamers,"
of both sexes, at the present day? To tame a
lion requires hardly more skill than to break a horse ;
and the sight of the noble brute cowed by mere
human cunning would scarcely have any attraction save
for the chance—the terrible chance—that the cunning
may for once be at fault, and that a moment of savage
impatience may pay for years of indignity. It is thus
that, with ell our boasted refinement, we run after amuse-
ments which may reproduce all the atrocities, without
exhibiting the brave struggles, of the aLcient circus. In
some of the greatest feats of rope-dancing, in some of
the wildest antics of tumblers and jumpers, it is not
by the exhibition of the utmost grace and dexterity, but
by the daring with which he comes within an inch of
breaking his neck, that the performer elicits our loudest
storm cf applause. We frame ourlaws so as to put a
check, if it were possible, to suicidal instincts, and then we
pay any money which may tempt a poor fellow to court
self-destruction by capering and pirouetting on what may
be at any moment for him the brink of eternity. Many
of us have seen "a female Blondin" achieving au ascent
on the slack rope to the top of some of our loftiest thea-
tres, trundling a wheelbarrow before her with a couple of
infants within it. The interest of the thing was simply
that the woman, the wheelbarrow, the babies, and all
rnieht come down with a crash. The crowd in the pit
evidently made ready for the catastrophe by shrinking
back from the rows of seats immediately beneath the
rope. They were careful enough to take care of them-
selves, but for the fate that might he- in store for those
poor wretches in mid-air—why, they had bought their
tickets, and with them the right to their share of plea-
surable excitement.
The Standard observes that the Habitual Criminals
Act has already taken effect in one or two cases in which
its operation will meet with an all but unanimous ap-
proval—the only dissentients, we suspect, being those who
have good reason to apprehend that they may sooner or
later find themselves subject to its provisions. As a
general pule, with certain and local exceptions, the power
of magistrates in cases of assault has been mest inadequate
to the due punishment of the worst class of offenders.
The " roughs " have, as our contemporories
r2marked, learnt their power from such demonstra-
tions as those by which Messrs. Beales and
Finlen overawed the respectability of London,
and threw the West-end into panic, and instead of sub-
mitting quietly to the agents of the law, have, when
threatened with arrest, attacked, maltreated, and maimed
the police with atrocious ferocity, and too often with
comparative impunity. The act meets this evil by giving
magistrates power to pass a sentence of six months' im-
prisonment. That power has already been used ; and
the consternation which its exercise seems to have in-
spired in the minds of the culprits will, we hope, spread
to their associates, and protect and encourage the
official defenders of society in the fulfilment of
arduous and perilous duties, from which some of
them appear of late to have somewhat shrunk.
We agree, then, with Mr. Serjeant Cox that the provisions

of the act to which he called the attention,of the grand
jury at the Middlesex Sessions are of the utmost iinpor-
tanc^, as supplying a real " preventative check" on the
criminal profession, more efficient than any merely
deterrent measure can ever be ; and we only trust that
they may be administered with discretion and s%ith vigour
—with discretion lest any unhappy errors should, by
rendering them apparently incompatible with the security
of innocence, turn public opinion against them, and make
their execution impossible ; with vigour in order that they
may effect all that they are capable of effecting for the
protection of society and the defeat and dispersion of its
avowed intestine enemies.

It was to be expected, says the Post, that the subject of
technical education, and in connection with it the opera-
tion of the patent laws, would futnish the text for one of
the many addresses which are now being delivered at the
meeting of the British Association. Both questions have
been discussed by Mr. Siemens. Without considering in
detail cur patent laws, or noticing the many important
particulars in which they call for reformation, it must,
we think, be conceded that substantially they rest on a
sound principle. Without, some such laws as those now
in operation it would not be worth a man's while to
expend time and money in the prosecution of an
object which would immediately paSs to the benefit
of the entire community, and the attainment of
which might, according to the standard of national
rewards, bring to him bat slight - remuneration.
The case of Watt's steam-engine is in point. Without
such protection and inducement as those held out by the
patent laws, it is scarcely probable that Watt would have
carried out his project to a successful issue ; and the loss
to the nation. and the world would iu such an event have
been simply incalculable. Whether the tax now imposed
on industrial ingenuity by the heavy fees incidental to
patents should not be completely abolished is a question
which will &Atte under the consideration of the committee
which will doubtless be appointed next year to examine
the state of the patent laws; but it is scarcely probable
that any recommendation will be made adverse to the
existing principle of giving an individual the exclusive
enjoyment for a limited period of the fruit of his own
ingenuity.

The Telejraph reminds us that among the legends of
hotels is recorded the story of a customer who, in dire dis-
pleasure at the amount of his bill, angrily declared to tl e
waiter that he shoUld write at once to the newspapers.
" Yes, sir," was the waiter's answer, as he produced a
[Sheet of note-paper and an envelope ;- "yes, sir, only one
shilling extra." The moral of the story is sufficiently
obvious. It is the absence of uniformity in price which
makes travelling in England so costly and so uncomfort-
able. On the Continent, and in the United States, a
tourist can calculate his bill beforehand with almost
absolute accuracy. Rooms, dinner, breakfast, wino,
candles, and attendance are charged at so much per head ;
and though one inn may be dearer or cheaper than
another, yet the same proportion usually exists between
the amount of the items. Thus, when the traveller plans
out his journey, he knows pretty well what it will cost
him ; and he has no special anxiety each time he asks for
his bill, last it should prove so exorbitant that he will feel
bound to protest. But at home the case is widely
different. It is only through a wonderful amount of
self-denial that the ordinary traveller has any power of
exercising control beforehand over the way in which his
bill is running. If he asks the price of his rooms before
his luggage is brought up, he is at once made aware,
by the coldness of the landlord, that he has
committed a breach of hotel etiquette. When
he orders his dinner he is perfectly conscious that
anything the waiter particularly recommends is sure to
be extravagantly dear; and if he orders the cheapest wine
on the list— say Beaujolais at three shillings a bottle—he
is admonished, by the way in which the champagne and
coloured hock glasses are removed from the table, that he
has fallen ♦ery low in the estimation of his entertainers.
And the real result of all this state of things is that the
stay at the hotel is rendered gloomy by apprehension of
the coming bill. One great reason why Englishmen out
for their holiday go abroad instead of stoppirg at home is
that they know they will have f..r more comfort in foreign
hotels than they can hope to find at native inns ; while
the operation of settling the score will be far less provo-
cative of unpleasant feelings.
" How may the State best promote the education of
the destitute and neglected portion of the population ? "
This, remarks the Herald, is one of the questions to be
debated at Bristol, and assuredly one which is worthy of
all the earnest thought which can be devoted to it. In
many ways the question is perpetually asking itself at
l,loice•courts and down dark aleys, where constables are
contraband, and crime flourishes with impunity. It is
silently asked by a surplus agr:cuitural population, living in
misery under the blue sky, and still more ominously under
clouds of factory smoke by hard-worked men and women
who, though only " hands" in the language they ordinarily
hear, are, nevertheless, fathers and mothers with children
who must work or starve. Perhaps this question may find
itself snore or less connected with another, which is also
to be put to the congress. "Is it desirable that state-aid
shosld be given to emigration, and if so, in what form ?"
Indeed, it is wonderful how social questions always are
connected one with another. Both these subjects—the
education of our neglected children, and the care of our

purpins labour6fs-7Lave a great deal to do with the
Pr+Ter relations which ow,;11t to exist be'w.2tn Englat d
and her colonies, and might very profitably take
Preceilence
.of .the more political topic-perhai s
indeecl, to throw on it some additional light. We
11.6ve now to deal with the results of a •system in Math
human weakness, idleness, and improvidence have bet n
intensified -by ignorance, 'and we have a double task to
Perform-,-to check the...growth of misery by means of
education, and to mitigate that which exists by the inter-
vention of the State. It is useless to perform the second
if we neglect the first, but whatever may be urged con-

corning the future importance of education, it cannot be
f. ,rgotten that the present suffering which calls for allevia-
tion speaks to us iu very piteou3 language.

A WITTY PRECENTOII.—The anthem at Exeter
Catlinaral on Sunday, when that venerable edifice was
crowded with the saran., attending the Congress of the
Eritish Association, was Royce's " Oh, where shallwiedom
be found