The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-17 00:00:00

MUSCULAR HEATIIENISM.

(FroM the New York Times.)
This is certainly an age of revivals. Whether the
inventive faculties of the race have been exhausted,
or whether the theory of Pythagoras and Boat-
swain Chucks, that all things come round continu-
ally in cycles, be correct, we may leave it to the
philosophers to decide. If they fall into the fashion
of the moment, they will get at the truth by a neat
little " set-to" in the grounds of Columbia College ;
and may " the best man win" the faith of his fellows:

But we are certainly going through a course se
apings of the past. A few years since all the pros-
perous shopkeepers of the New World and the Old
filled their homes with furniture a la Louis XV. ;
sat in the fauteils of marchionesses, who had seen no
great difference between a tradesman and a toad-
stool, and ate from the ormolu tables of abbes whose
religion recognised only the higher classes as human.
In like manner the pompous ceremonials of the
mediaeval church, the intonings of Latin litanies by
priests in gorgeous robes; the embroidery of altar-
cloths for early English churches, and of glittering
copes for young persons "pale with vigil and with
fast," became the rage. Everybody went mad about
the romantic " ages of faith." These backward aspi-
rations have not commonly borne very satisfactory
fruit. To wafer the customs of a bygone time upon
an uncongenial generation is apt to make those cus-
toms rather ridiculous than venerable. Lord Eglin-
ton's attempt to poke chivalry out of its grave by a
tournament in his castle-yard, between knights
armed"with lances warranted not to hurt, ended in
an immediate shower of rain on the spot, and a last-
ing subsequent reverberation of quips and jokes and
squibs. And the glory of Puseyism is dying out to-
-day in a vulgar quarrel between a pig-headed elegy-
man of St. George's-in-the-East, in London, and his
equally pig-headed congregation, about a few roses
and spangles, and candles more or less, introduced
into the service of a church which nobody ever used
to attend till it became the scene of a series of re-
freshing Sabbath-day scrimmages.
We are now in the brief throes of still another
gush of popular antiquarianism. The old Greek
worship of muscle has been suddehly shouted and
written and gambled into an effervescent vitality
in the two freest countries of the world, which also
pretend to be the leaders of civilisation and the
great depositories of pure Christianity.
The leading English and American journals of
March and April, 1860, will be a curious study for
the historian in the year 2000. He will find the
names of Heenan and Sayers jostling those of Pal-
merston and Buchanan in their columns, and the
most elaborate correspondence devoted to the story
of what he will naturally suppose to have been a
grand international Olympic Game. Of course, he
will understand that the prominence given to these
heroes and to their encounter represents the interest
taken by the public of each country in the matter ;
and as he will also observe in the British journals
of these times, innumerable exercitations and homi-
lies upon the licence of American life, the brutality
of American manners and the decay of American
institutions, he will reasonably infer that the true
gleam of national manhood and dignity which our
English cousins owned as worthy of themselves in
our degenerate American character, was the equal
zeal with which we followed them to the solemni-
ties of the sublime gymnastic art. In ancient days
the poets of Greece did not disdain to sing the
praises of those who won the boxer's parsley-
wreath, and the picturesque enthusiasm with which
the London Tinzes .records the prowess of the cham-
pions who pounded each other black and blue at
Farnborough, pales before the brilliant sketch which
Virgil has left us of the much more tremendous
fight between Dares and Entelias. England and
America, therefore, will be fairly enough supposed
a century hence to have been
possessed, in this year
of our Lord 1860, with a sudden fever ef the good
old Muscular Heathenism. Every circus stance of
the story will favour the supposition. The Pick-
wickian good-nature of the English magistracy,
who pretended, to keep the belligerents asunder ;
the complaisance of the English railway directors,
all " honourable men," who consented to invest
as equal partners with the pugilistic pietists in
the performance of their sacred rites and in
the tribute of the worshippers ; the amiable
obtuseness of the English police, who watched every
railway station in London but the one selected for
the great exodus ; the presence on the ground of
dukes and earls, peers and members of Parliament,
authors and clergymen, the flower of English sta-
tion and culture and wealth, surely, if these things
do not show that England believes in prize-fighting
as ever did Nero himself (as capital a judge, by the
way, as ever decided a " draw, or a defeat), what
in tile world do they show ? And, of course, the in-
terest and clamour with which the tidings of the
fight have been received in America, the tens of

thousands of " extras" snatched up by the impa-
tient public almost before the ship that brought
them was fast at her moorings ; the Pindaric pas-
sion of our people in the conviction that a great
triumph was really won for the American name on
the 17th of April (why couldn't. they have waited
two days for the anniversary of Lexington ?), and
that our young Samson having fallen among Phi-
listines, has been robbed of his due prize—of course,
we say, all these American echoes of England's ex-
citement will be interpreted to prove that we, too,
share this great apostacy from faith in the soul back
to faith in the fists—from respect to humanity back
to delight in aimless suffering and prostituted
strength.
But there is .another side to the picture. The
Muscular Heathenism is, after all, rather a cheap
article; no more like the Spartan original than Dr.
Pusey was like Pope Gregory VII., or Lord Althorp
at Eglinton Castle like -Richard the Lion Heart at
Ascalon. In the first place, whoever won the " great
fight," or failed to win it--whether Heenan' blinded
but victorious, was chousecl of his glory by some
base slave who " cut the rapes" on which Sayers
was strangling at the very moment when another
squeeze or two would have brought Britain's
champion to the " sponge" of shame or no—the
fight itself was but a po:)r and
,pale imitation of
the good old Greek ia, and of those
cestus-battles on which the Cretan boxe7s staked
their muscular lives. A few days of repose
and a bottle of arnica will mend the mo-
dern maulers of God's visage. The Grecian
and Roman giants gave and took blows compaced
with which the thumps of Farnborough would
seem but friendly taps. The truth is our Christia-
nity is in our way. We can be muscular, but we
can't be comfortably and thoroughly heathenish.
This conscience doth make milksops of us all. We
may try our best to revive what even pagan Galen
called the " vicious gymnastics" of the ancients ;
but we shall only parody them. Then, again, we
are a money-seeking generation, and our " manly
art of self-defence" degenerates so rapidly into a
close family connection with "poker" and " brag,"
and all the other schemes whereby the over-witty
contrive to conjure spare cash out of the pockets of
the witless into their own, that we shall not see the
popular enthusiasm long maintained about " cham-
pions" who really represent nothing more "na-
tional" or " international" than would be repre-
sented by a Mississippi planter and an English
baronet betting over the green cloth at Baden-
Baden.

We are madly given, here in America especially,
to the love of sensations. What the sensation may
be does not much matter. To be sure, if you spice
it with a dash of patriotism, however cheap, it will
be for the moment all the more welcome. But it
has its hour, and no more. How we shouted when
George Steers built us a yacht to beat all England
on her own waters ! How much would we give
to-day to build George Steers a monument ! How
glad we were to burn our City Hall in honour of
Cyrus W. Field and the Atlantic telegraph !
No ; the fashion of muscular heathenism, like all
the fashion of the world, passeth away, and the
chances are that it will have a longer life in Con-
servative England than in Radical America; among
the peers who patronise pugilism, than among the
pugilists who aspire to a sat at the aldermanic
board, and a voice in the con'ress-making caucuses
of New York.

THE CHARGES AGAINST THE REV. MR- BON-
WELL.—On Sunday last the Rev. James Bonwell was
served, in the vestry of the church, with a prohibition from
the Bishop of London, ordering him not to continue te
minister to the congregation of St. Phillip's, Stepney, during
the proceedings now pending against him concerning the
birth of a child in the school-room of the schools belonging
to that church. The articles delivered to him called upon
the rev. delinquent to appear and answer certain charges
contained in the articles before Dr. Lushington, in the
clesiastical Court, at the instance of the Bishop of London.
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ow physical apd PIPAI Wag.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE—May 16.

SOUTHWARK.—ROBBERY OF UPWARDS OF
£3OO BY A SERVANT.—HORRIBLE DEPRAVITY.—
William John Dent, 30, cab-driver, badge No.
13,549, a married man, and Mary Shaw, 19, his
niece, who held an infant in her arms, the result of
their incestuous intercourse, were brought before
Mr. Combe, charged with being concerned with
Ann Dent, the wife of the former, in stealing a.
cash-box containing £305 in Bank of England
notes and gold, and a valuable gold watch and
chain, the property of Mrs. Louisa Fisher, a lady,
residing at No. 62, Leman-street, Whitechapel.
It appeared from the evidence of Dennis Clark,
108 M, that Ann Dent, the male prisoner's wife, had
ostensibly separated from him for near two years,
and that she obtained a situation at Mrs. Fisher's,
in Leman-street, where considerable confidence was
reposed in her, and she was believed by her mistress
to be a single woman. On Saturday the 7th of last
month, she absconded, when Mrs. Fisher discovered
that she had stolen her cash•box., containing £305
in Bank of England notes and gold, besides a valu-
able gold watch and chain. A reward of £6O was
offered for her apprehension, but up to the present
time she managed to elude the vigilance of the
police, Clark, who is an active officer, made in-
quiries, and after some trouble discovered that the
prisoners had lived together as man and wife for
near fifteen months. In consequence of that he
went to a house in Crosby-row, Long-lane, Ber-
mondsey, and found the female prisoner with her
infant, and in the rooms occupied by her and the
man he found a new bedstead, bedding, chairs,
tables, linen, and a quantity of recently-purchased
wearing apparel, which she could not account for.
Ile took her into custody, and afterwards appre-
hended the man, as being concerned in Mrs. Fisher's
robbery.
Mr. Combe asked whether it was true that the
prisoners were so nearly related.
Clark replied that the male was uncle to the
, female, and that they had lived together some

time.
The male prisoner denied living with his niece,
but he admitted that he was the father of the child.
As for his wife, he had separated from her nearly
two years, and had net spoken to her for fourteen
months.
Mr. Combo told him he was a disgraceful fellow
by his own admission. Seducing his own niece, and
then living a life of deplorable profligacy with her.
He then asked the officer (Clark) what evidence he
had to show that they were in anywise connected
with the robbery.
Clark said that the property he had found had
no doubt been purchased with the proceeds, as the
male prisoner had been seen with his wife within
the last fortnight, and he had been known to have
had a considerable sum of money in his possession.
The articles were all new, and the female could
give no account whatever of the possession. .A
little more than a month ago she was in the greatest
poverty.
The male prisoner said he knew all about the
property. It was honestly come by.
Mr. Combe told him that he understood him to
say he did not live with the young woman, his
niece. If that were the case, what should he know
of the property ? He was a disgraceful fellow, and
not fit for the society_ of any human being. His
worship then asked whether there was any clue to
the wife's whereabouts. _

Jackson, a private deteci:ve officer, said that there
was, and, if a remand were granted, no doubt the
police would be able to apprehend her in a few
days. They would also be able to trace the Bank
notes that had been stolen, and show that some had
been in the possession of the prisoners;
Mr. Combe accordingly remanded them until
Tuesday next.

L'UUNTRY MARK_ETAS.

NEWARK-MAY 16.

The show of wheat from the farmers to-day was fair, and
a moderate business was transacted at rather higheeprices.
Barley in short supply, but steady. Peas firm, at 45s to
65s per qr.
White wheat, new, 58s to 62s
Red do. sls to 56s
Old white 58s to 62a
Red do. 51s to 56s
Barley, malting 40s to 46s

Barley, grinding 30s to 32v
Oats, old, .. 29s to 33s
New do 27s to 32v
Beans. 46s to 48s
Beans, new —s to —5

LYNN—MAY 15.
The supply of wheat was limited, and there was a fair
attendance. Trade ruled at about last week's rates.
Old white 52s to 56s 1 Old red 48s to 530
New white.. 48s to 51s 1 New red...