The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-23 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 23, 1860

lector, had ascertained the quality of the additions
likely to be made by the bill to the leech electoral
registry. We should have thought Leeds would
be an unfavourable specimen of the classes who
would obtain votes. We mean that the new fran-
chise must there, if anywhere, introduce a large
number of persons of the lower suctions of the
working classes. It appears to be just the reverse.
The constituency is now 6,ooo—it will be increased
by 4,000, of whom 2,500 will be strictly of the
operative class ;—but, adds the treasurer, " these,
you will please to observe, are the most intelligent
and best skilled workmen of their class." The infor-
mation forwarded to Mr. BAINES went into details,
and enumerated, under schedules, the trades of the
persons to whom it is proposed to give the franchise.
"'Three schedules," he observed, " relating to these
persons were furnished. The first included those
who occupied houses of from £6 to £7. The trades
to which the persons included in it belonged indi-
cated that there would be extrome difficulty in
their organisation for any common political pur-
poses. There were cloth-dressers, dyers, mechanics
of various kinds, masons, bricklayers, plasterers,
and joiners. The second schedule included persons
who paid from £7 to £B, and there were to be
found cloth-pressers, warehousemen, iron and
brass moulders, brushmakers, wood-turners, cur-
riers, anti leather-dressers, and so on. In the third
schedule, which comprised houses from £8 to £lO,
were retail shopkeepers of all kinds, bookeepers
and assistant clerks, and printers. These facts
would, he hoped, satisfy those who thought that
the new electors were such a homogeneous class
that they might he combined for any political pur-

pose."

In all this we get a peep at facts ; and they are,
we must confess, more in favour of the working
of the new franchise, so far as these vast manufac-
turing towns are concerned, than we had ventured
to anticipate. We all wish the better glass of
workmen to have a vote. In Leeds they will have
it—will have it in no outrageous disproportion; and
all will go on there, doubtless, much as before.
When a Liberal like Mr. BAINES, a dissenter, but of
the thoroughly Whig school, seems to have no fear
for his seat, and after careful investigation of the
facts on the spot, not to have the least feeling that
the £6 franchise is too radical, we think we may
venture to console all the Whig Liberals, who
somewhat quake for their position in the large towns.
A few of them may have to move on a little—to accept
the Ballot for instance, if they have hitherto op-
posed it, and that will be all. The entire propor-
tion of non-electors to the old cannot be, it appears,
such as to " swamp" the latter. Under this Bill
the registered electors in boroughs will be about
607,000. Well, this is just about the number of
adult males of the upper and middle classes in our
boroughs. Again supposing the operative classes
admitted by the bill to amount to 120,000 or at
most to 150,000, that would make them but
one-fourth of the electoral constituency—a propor-
tion which, considering their vast number, cannot
surely be thought large. On whichever side we
view the extension, we can see no cause for alarm
on the part of the most timid. Of course, for our-
selves, we never had any. We have the fullest faith
in the principle that to make men quiet, contented,
loyal citizens, nothing is so effectual as to grant them
equal civil and political privileges. Working men,
like all other men, have honest, loyal English
hearts in the main ; and our safest reliance is not
on unjust exclusions, which fret them, but on the
confidence which begets confidence.

A more ludicrous illustration of the absurdities
to which a false principle may lead grave and
learned men, can hardly, perhaps, be found than in
the " grievance" attacked last Wednesday by Mr.
DILwYN, and defended by the Government agent
for such business, Mr. Low E—the Right Honour-

able R. LowE we ought to say -- he who has
prudently escaped from the stones and brick-
bats of Kidderminster, to nestle senatori-
ally in the arms of Lord LANSDOWNE,
at Caine. The amusing thing is, that in this blessed
era of" light and knowledge," the Courts of Law,
and pre-eminently the Court of Chancery, know of
no religion in the land but that of the Prayer-book
and Artisles. Roman Catholic cathedrals and
chapels cover Ireland and are common enough here.
Wesleyans of four or five kinds proclaim on large
stone buildings, that they worship there according
to JOHN WESLEY and "the Conference." Baptists,
Independents, and we know not how many less
numerous bodies of persons, have erected in every
town, and almost village, buildings which every
passer-by knows to be appropriated to nothing but
the worship of GOD; and, lastly, the irrefutable
census tells us that the majority of the worship-
pers of the country worship in these buildings—
buildings in which the reading of the prayers and
the articles is never heard. Yet grave and

learned men sitting on the seat of justice declare
that they know nothing of all this religion ! It
may be religion, for aught they can tell, the religion
possibly of the greater number, but it is religion
unknown to law. No judge can take account of it.
As religious men, from Roman Catholics to Quakers,
the worshippers in these buildings have no more
existence than slaves have ,as men at all, in the
law of the United States. Aa the poor slaves
there are chattels, not men ; so all non-conformists
are men, indeed, but not religious men ; 'they may
have a creed and worship, but they have legally no
religion.

This pleasant little bit of legal drollery, which
one would suppose to be merely an obsolete
quip or quirk of courts at the present day, is
however, credite posteri, paraded before the

Houses of Parliament as real wisdom I Judges
decreed
do really act upon it. Not long ago they
that some Dissenting trustees must be removed
from the trusts of the Ilminster Grammar School,
because in law Dissenters could not be " godly and
religious persons." Many of their neighbours are
apt to think their only fault in this respect to be
that of being religious overmuch, But the Judges
held that they could not, in this age of the law,
be religious at all ; and, as the deeds required
the trustees to be so, why the Dissenting trustees
must budge; "a living dog is better than a dead
lion," and a Churchman, though a drunkard, is
legally more religious than the. Dissenting tee-
totaller. To men of plain common sense so absurd
seemed the rule of Chancery law which the Judges
pleaded, that it was thought Judges, and Lords,

and Commons, and every one, would be glad enough

establish some community between law

and fact,—between the rules of law, and
the rules of daily life. The :subject i:vas,
however, bought before the Commons

Last session, when, by means we need not detail, the
awyers contrived to bewilder the House of Com-

coons, and to send to the Lords a bill which the

Lords rejected at once.

The Lords have sent one

down to the Commons this year, which simply pro-

poses to enable trustees to permit children of Ms-

seaters to be taught in grammar schools, without
being compelled to learn what is offensive to their

parents. Mr. DILWYN's bill, which was rejected
on Wednesday, takes a wider sweep. It pro-
ceeds on the principle that where the foun-

dation deeds of the school prescribe no par-
ticular ci:eed, no person shall be excluded

from trusteeship of the school on account of his
religious principles.

As no schools founded prior to King EDWARD'S
reign could have been founded with any regard to
the Church of England, as the founders were Catho-
lics and would regard the Church of England,
could they rise from their graves, as an apostate
Church—it is plain that all such schools
ought to be open equally to all classes of
her MAJESTY'S subjects. No founder's title can be
alleged by the dominant sect. If the Judges con-
strued according to the founders' views, they would
pronounce the religion of the Church of England
heresy!! And yet this Church has found
means to persuade Judges to consider hers to be
the only religion in England ! We do not care to
dispute the correctness of the Judges' interpre-
tation they are bound by their precedents ;
but we do assert, that if the law be
what they say it is, it ought to be
instantly altered. The arrogant exclusiveness of
the Church of England in grasping every sixpence
confiscated from the Roman Catholics by her
founder, HENRY VIII. of blessed memory, is only
paralleled by the arrogance of the legal ground she
takes in making the claim—that in this land of
liberty, of toleration, and of Christian equality, the
law is to understand nothing by religion, but her
Prayer-book and Articles ! We do not wish to im-
peach their excellence, but really we should like
Churchmen to settle first among themselves what
is their religion. Are we to learn that from St.
George's-in-the-East and St. Barnabas, or from
Lambeth, and the Earl of SHAFTESBURY's theatre
preachers ? Let the Church settle what her reli-
gion really is before she claims that it shall be the
the only one to which the law shall award all the
loaves and fishes.

Evidently there is a perfect panic in the ranks
of " the privileged." In the Lords last night the
terror was openly confessed. Dissenters, it was
said, are conspiring to reduce the Church of Eng-
land to their own level; or, what is just as horri-
ble, to place themselves on a level with
the Church of England. A very harmless
Bill was before their lordships—one which
had passed the House of Commons with hardly
any discussion ; Mr. NEWDEGATE, we be-
lieve, only objecting ; it waste abolish the declara-
tion made by municipal Counciilors, if Dissenters,
that they would do nothing in virtue of their
office to injure the Church of England. Lord DERBY
and a Bishop opposed it, and got it rejected, on the
ground that it was a part of a system which aimed at
religious equality. The whip has been used of late
for this reason against all really liberal measures,
great or small. Church-rates, the ballot, en-
dowed schools, and even municipal declaration—
composed of no value in itself have all
summoned from their retreats the whole
strength of the Tory party. We rejoice in all
this. The right bide will only triumph more
effectually, the more desperately the monopoly of
civil and religious privileges fight for their
" vested wrongs."

The public must by this time have become
heartily sick of the farcical hypocrisy attempted to
be played on them in regard to the Italian and
Savoy affairs by most parties. They have been
juggled by Emperor, King, and Ministers
to the top of their bent. And a precious
" kettle of fish" they have made of it. Rumours
preceded lies—lies begat contradictions as veritable
as their antagonists. Then came arguments
founded on sophisms more or less reliable in pro-
portion to the source of their parentage, which
after all seemed to evade a closer scrutiny. Pre-

sently sinister assurances were sent out as feelers
to test the strength of pulse evinced by the
credulous, the doubtful, or the unbelieving.
Altogether, it was a piece of such barefaced im-
pudence that its infamy can only be measured
by the unblushing scandal of its assurance !
Verily experience seems lost on Emperors as much
as upon humbler individuals ; for the fate of his
uncle presents no other monitor to NAPOLEON the
TIIIRD but the mirror of hope in which his • own
destiny is mystified by the shadow of the future.
Let him go on rejoicing, it may be for a while; but
the hour of retribution is coming with a sure
but wizard step, which will lead him to
his doom. Men may be trifled with for a
while, and nations may look on and bide
their time—and the longer they wait
the more complete will be their vengeance:
NAPOLEON trusts in his destiny—others
have done the same, and found it at Philipi!
He may meet it on the Rhine, or curse it in the
Channel.

Before Savoy is actually re-united (reunie) to
France, it can hardly fail to be interesting to note
here, briefly, how it came to pass, under what pre-
cise circumstances it happened; that Savoy was
formerly absorbed by France as " part and parcel"
of her dominions.

It is first of all worthy of remark, however, that
Savoy only belonged to France, once upon a time,
for the comparatively brief and even insignificant
interval (in the history of nations) of scarcely
eighteen years and a-half ! '

It was in the Ma'y of 1796 that Savoy was first
given over to France by Sardinia. It was in the
October 3f 1815 that the assembled Powers of
Europe resolved, in, solemn congress at Vienna,
upon the act of restitution.
France was Republican when Savoy was seized.
It was taken possession of then in the name of the
democracy, one and indivisible, as the spoil of a
military.
,conqueror—that conqueror young General
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. It was almost at the very
outset of his wonderful career. Ho had hardly
unfurled his banners. They had scarcely begun
to flutter—" fanned by conquest's crimson wing."
It was only in the March of 1796 that he had
joined the Army of Italy, (then literally nothing
more than a disorganised band of men clothed in
rags) as Commander-in-Chief. He fleshed his
sword on the 11th of April upon that memorable
scene of the first of the Great NAPOLEON'S Vic-
tories—the Field of Montenotte. On the 14th of
• the same month he defeated the Austrians to the
aritegi‘hitoataloelsdi, t,mooriAN the left simultaneously at D ego and
On the f
lo7rtchedliteheexAcliapism,
and w e I
have
edatNonte
zm
turned them !" On the '22d he won Mondori. On
the 7th of 111-ay he crossed the Po. On the Bth
he vanquished his opponents at Fiombo. On the
10th of May he crossed the bridge of Lodi
iti the midst of a deadly and blinding hurricane of
balls—being dubbed for that act of heroism by his
troops by the title which marked him thenceforth
as the darling of the French Army—The Little
Corporal ! On the 15th of May he entered Milan
—victorious.. And it was on that 15th of May,
1796, that the famous treaty of peace between the
French Republic and the King of SARDINIA was
signed—whereby there were ceded to France by
Sardinia—Savoy, Nice, and the whole of the pos-
sessions of Piedmont to the westward of the highest
ridge of the Alps, from Mount St. Bernard by
Mount Genevre to the immediate vicinity of Genoa,
at Roccabarbone! Upon the signing of this treaty
at the close of an armistice but a fortnight
old, what wrote General NAPOLEON ,BONA-

PARTE to the Directory ? King VICTOR EM-
MANUEL would do well to cone the words of
that letter—they are these :—" Coni, Ceva, and
Alessandria are in the hands, of our army
I shall march to-morrow against I3EAULIEU and
drive him across the Po; I shall follow close at his
heels, overrun all Lonibardy, and in a month be in
the Tyrol, join the army of the Rhine, and carry-
our united forces into Bavaria.
continue your confidence in me, I shall answer for
the results, and Italy is at your feet !" Yes—ltaly
was at the feet of France, and Piedmont was under
heel ! Count CAVOUR would do well to lay this to
heart. The gall and wormwood engendered in the
hearts of the Italians soon after that first seizure of
Savoy by France, were they not as aptly as wittily
expressed by the Pasquinade affixed to the statue
of MARFordo ? Where some wag had written
Si thee die i Francesi sono tulli ladroni, " They
say the French are all robbers or rascals ;" to which
that wicked PASQUIN scrawled the ready answer
(No, not all—but a good many of them), Non tulli
una B UONArARTE.

LAVES

NE

The following telegrams have been ret.eived. at
Mr. Reuter's office :

TURIN, MARCH 22.
Baron Ricasoli arrived here to-day, and was re-
ceived by the King at four o'clock.

His Majesty, in reply to a congratulatory speech
of Baron Ricasoli, said—

" I accept the vote of Tuscany, which: after
having been expressed by the National Assembly,
is now confirmed by the unanimity of the popular
suffrages.

" Tuscany, in associating. her destinies with those
of Piedmont, far from renouncing, continues her
glorious traditions, and augments their importance
by uniting them to those ofthe other parties of the
State. The Parliament in which the representatives
of Tuscany will take their seats beside those of Pied-
mont, Lombardy, and the /Emilia, will bring the
laws of the country into conformity with the fruit-
ful principle of liberty.

"Thus Tuscany will enjoy the blessings of admi-
nistrative autonomy without weakening the union
of power and the national will, upon which the
prosperity and the independence of the country
are principally dependent.

The King then signed the decree annexing Tus-
cany to Sardinia.

LEGIIOItN, MA.neir 22.
Count do Mosbourg, who (a litre officieux) occupied the
post of French Charge d'Affaires in Tuscany, has engaged
a suite of apartments in this city.
As soon as the annexation of Tuscany to Piedmont shall
have been promulgated, the French Legation at Florence
will be dissolved, and its employes will in the meantime
retire to Leghorn, in accordance with the last instructions
received from Paris.

PARIS, MARCH 22,

The Patrie of this evening says :—" The Sar-
dinian troops have commenced the evacuation of
Savoy. The first detachment of the French troops
returning from Lombardy will arrive in Savoy on
the 25th instant."