The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-11 00:00:00

THE SUN.
LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 11, 1860.

We observe that a deputation from several bodies
waited yesterday on Lord PALMERSTON in refer-
ence to the Census Bill of the Government. The
object of course was to invite his lordship's atten-
tion to the objectionable proposals on which we
felt it right to make some strong remarks a few
days ago. The deputations were, we perceive, all
from different dissenting organisations ; the prin-
cipal one being the old, and, for dissenters, rather
conservative body, the " Protestant deputies of the
Three Denominations," a body not at all likely to
bestir itself for anything which would not be
thought a real grievance. They were introduced
also by Sir M. PETO and Mr. FRANK CROSSLEY,
the member for the West Riding, who, though
hearty Liberals, are neither of them men of
theories and crotchets—altogether, indeed, business
men, and certain not to lend the weight of their

names to any mere fancy grievance.
The character, therefore, of the deputation con-
firms our suggestion that the proposal to ask every
man in England " Are you a Churchman—or a
Dissenter—or a Roman Catholic "—came origi-
nally from the High Church party, and was devised
to nullify the effect of the returns on Religious
Worship of 1851. Those returns showed what all
Etglishrnen, by their very temperament, care most
about—the work done, and who did it. We all dis-
like inquisition, whether it be into the amount of
our income, or into the nature of our creed; but
we all feel an interest in knowing what is doing
and who are the doers. Now, we think it grossly
unfair, because the returns showed that Dissenters,.
at no cost to the nation, were doing full half the
work of religious instruction, while the establish-
ment at the cost of Church-rates and tithes, and all
the endowments conferred on it by HENRY VIII.,
hardly did half that was done—we think it utterly
unfair that the Churchman should endeavour to get
rid of a similar return for 1861. Worse, indeed,
than that, for they want to supersede it by another
return, which shall give them the fictitious
advantage of reckoning as Churchmen the
great mass of those who go to no church whatever!
And, as we remarked last time, the advantage, too,
of counting all the Wesleyans, who, voluntarians
and entire seceders as they are, do not call them-
selves Dissenters ; also the greater portion of the
army and navy, and the inmates of gaols and work-
houses.

A return so made would be of no real value,
though men liko the Duke of MARLBOROUGH would
trumpet it in the House of Lords, and Lord ROBERT
MONTAGUE in the House of Commons; while, in
addition to its unfairness and worthlessness, is the
utterly un.English demand to be made of us all,
and made under a heavy penalty, " What is your
creed 9" As if, too, to make the question still more
provoking, you are not even to shape your answer
as you please. It is like the ballots of the Empe-
ror of the FRENCH, " Otti," or " Non." We repu-
diate the right of the Government to ask the ques-
tion at all ; but to ask it so that you may dislike all
the permitted answers, yet not be allowed to give

your own, is a refinement of annoyance which could
have been devised only by a High-Church inqui-

sition.

General Sir DE LACY EVANS is—if we may just
for once use a mixed metaphor—fast becoming a
PAUL PRY grafted upon a DON QUIXOTE. The
gallant old veteran put to the occupants of the
Treasury Bench three very simple questions last
evening in the House of Commons, and in two in-
stances got unmistakeably snubbed by members of
the Government. Really and truly the gallant
member for Westminster appears to be losing all
discretion, whether as an " Old Soldier" or as an
" Old Representative." What Sir DE LACY can
possibly be driving at we cannot for the life of us
conjecture. He asks the noble lord the represen•
tative of the Admiralty in the House of Commons
once more very coolly—for it is not by any means
the first time General EVANS has been thus egre-
giously inquisitive—he asks Lord CLARENCE
PAGET yet once again very coolly to oblige him
(Sir DE LACY EVANS) by stating the precise
number of marines and sailors now on the
Chinese stations ! To this extraordinary request
Lord CLARENCE PAGET responds very significantly,
that he should be glad to give the gallant officer the
number in private ! The astounding indiscretion
of the member for Westminster is, in those few
words, clearly demonstrated. Before, however,
commenting further upon this amazing evidence,
almost we had said, of fatuity, on the part of as
brave a man, we believe, as there is in her Majesty's
army, we must briefly specify the two other in-
stances in which Sir DE LACY EVANS sustained yes-
terday his fast growing reputation for injudicious
curiosity.

Directing his attention a few minutes later on in
the evening to the right hon. gentleman the Sec-
retary for War, Sir DE LACY EvANs inquired
what was the exact strength of our garrison at
China and Hong Kong. Whereupon Mr. SIDNEY
HERBERT, breaking away for once from what may
be termed the official habitude of Ministerial reti-
cence, replied that " the garrisons of Hong Kong
and Canton comprised three batteries of artillery
consisting of 292 men, three companies of Royal
Engineers containing 268 men, and a battalion of
European troops 735 strong." Adding that " there
were also three battalions of native troops contain-
ing 1,639 men, who were to be relieved by an equi-
valent force; and•orders had been given that the
English soldiers who were sick should be sent
home, unless urgent affairs required that
they should be retained there some time
longer." So that Sir DE L. EVANS has by his im-
portunate reiteration of inquiries, at last succeeded
in extracting from one of her MAJESTY'S Secretary's
of State this small modicum of information—for the
advantage of her MAJESTY'S enemies! The gallant
general ought, therefore, we suppose, to feel con-
soled for the sarcasm latent in the reply already
alluded to as having been previously vouchsafed to
him by the noble lord the representative of the Ad-
miralty in the Lower House of Parliament—and
even for the distinct and curt refusal of any infor-
mation whatever by another noble lord, the
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the
refusal of any information whatever upon the sub-
ject to which we are now about, for one moment, to
direct the reader's attention.

General Sir DE LACY EVANS, then, to put the
matter very briefly, asked the noble lord the Secre-
tary for Foreign Affairs to lay on the table " the
despatches to which he had formerly alluded,
which he had addressed to the Sardinian Govern-
ment as to the expedition of General GARIBALDI."
To which (to say the very least of it) curiously-
timed request, Lord JOHN RUSSELL said at once,
in reply, that—a-hem—" it would not be convenient
to produce those despatches ! " And, certainly,
one might venture to say that it only requires half
an eye to see upon the instant that it is just within
the limits of possibility that it might not be con-
venient. Why, here is General GARIBALDI but
just now actually embarked upon that extraordi-
narily perilous expedition of his—we don't know
yet how it has gone with him and his followers
since they quitted the Bay of Genoa—we have
yet to hear whether they have been able to
effect a safe landing upon the coast of
Sicily, and yet there is Sir DE LACY EVANS—here
is General Sir DE LACY EVANS asking eagerly
for those despatches to be laid upon the table which
relate directly to the fortunes and exploits of the
famous Condotteri.

It is all perfectly in keeping, however, with the
gallant veteran's prevailing thirst for all kinds of
indiscreet and mal apropos pieces of information.
His chief curiosity being, as we have seen, directed
to the laying bare, if possible, of all the ins and
outs of our proposed warlike doings upon the
coast of China. We wonder very much sometimes
how Sir De LACY EVANS would have liked the same
kind of inquisitiveness to have been directed a few
years back to his own famous warlike expedition in
the Iberian Peninsula. Whether, for example,it might
just possibly have crossed his mind at that time
that his interests might have been materially mili-
tated against, and his plans as a military comman-
der very seriously jeopardised, by indiscreet inquiries
of this nature put in the House of Commons at that
time as to the exact strength of his Spanish Legion,
and, even it might be, as to its probable movements !
Whenever the gallant member for Westminster
may, from his place in the House of Commons,
direct any more of these singular inquiries of his to
the occupants of the Treasury bench, we do ear-
nestly trust that no one upon that bench will
answer as explicitly as Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT
answered only yesterday ! We sincerely hope, on the
contrary, that whomsoever among our administrators
may be called upon to reply will do so either by
sarcastically offering (as Lord C. PAGET did last
evening) to give Sir DE LACY EVANS the required
information " in private," or by distinctly declining
to give any information at all (as Lord J. RUSSELL
did very resolutely last evening) explaining simply
while doing so that it would be—inconvenient.

When will St. George's-in-the-East rest from its
dissensions ? When will the Church find peace ?
Never, we are afraid, until some legal enactment
regulates the Church service. At a meeting of the
ratepayers of St. George's-in•the.-East, some short
time since, it was submitted by one of the congre-
gation " that the placing of a police force in the
parish church of St. George's, for the purpose of
countenancing and upholding a parcel of fractarian
priests in the propagation of their Popish doctrines,
was unlawful; and that, as the police were paid
out of the poor rates, the ratepayers would do well
to plus° and consider whether they ought to pay
any more rates until the police resumed their legi-
timate duties." The resolution was agreed to, with
one dissentient. This was a new phase in the
comedy ; first protection is demanded by the lovers
of law and order, and a sufficient police force is sent
to insure peace and quiet without resorting to
violence; next the ratepayers declare that they
consider the presence of the police in the church
unlawful, and feel conscientious scruples about
paying poor rates. What is at present being en-
acted in one locality may shortly spread throughout

the length and breadth of the land, for there is no
reason why one congregation should feel 2ore

sensitive on religious doctrines than another. We
believe that it requires the presence of about 300
policemen to render the religious truths which
emanate from the lips of the white-robed incumbent
of St. George's acceptable to his hearers. How
would it be if the same force were required for
each parish in London ? The spiritual welfare of
the champions of the peace might be enhanced, but
prudence would suggest to rich paterfamilias to re-
main at home during Divine service to guard the,
plate. The Church of England service can be dis-
torted into a variety of shapes, like every other sub-
ject, when people begin to split hairs. This is a land
of toleration, and advantage is.taken of it to form
a variety of religious societies ; they have their
own chapels, and go to Heaven or elsewhere their
own way without let or hindrance. Why, then,
should not these gentlemen who support peculiar
theories promulgate them to the select few who
admire them in some private chapel, and not take
possession of a parish church It has been said if a
congregation object to the manner in which a clergy-
man performs his religious office, let them appeal
to the bishop of the diocese-. But of what avail
would such application be if the worthy prelate
countenanced such proceedings, and considered
lighted candles and a white robe as among the
mainstays of Christianity, and that without such
valuable adjuncts salvation would ;be doubtful.
The only course open to the discontents would be
eitker to grin and bear the infliction, go into ano-
ther diocese, or discontinue attending religious
worship,when they found that, in the place of piety,
they were regaled with cant. It is evident, there-
fore, that some higher authority must be appealed
to than the bishop, seeing that bishops are after all
but men, and differ in opinion just as much as
other mortals. The only true way of putting a stop
to such disgraceful proceedings as occur week by
week in St. Georges-in-the-East would be to enact
that the Church of England service, without super-
fluous additions or innovations, should be strictly
adhered to in all parish churches, and let secta-
rians and others find temples of their own to cele-
brate their particular forms of worship. Better
still let us have that revision of the Liturgy which
was discussed the other night in the Upper
House, and let simplicity and conciseness
be added to the merits of the Church
service. Let such a form be established by
authority, and let it be recognised that
those who introduce elaborate ceremonies, and scru-
pulously insist on trivial forms, are acting in oppo-
sition to the principles of the Church, rather than
in accordance with them, and can only do so at the
desire or with the consent of their parishioners.
Were such a course as this pursued, people might
go to Church confident that they would hear
prayers read according to an approved and fixed
regulation, and not look forward, half in doubt and
half in expectation, to see whether the divine
would ascend the pulpit in black or white, or, if
the fancy of the moment might induce him, to don
purple. Religion has always been a source of con-
tention since the world began. The same spirit
actuated the Moslems when, with fire and sword,
they forced the doctrines of the Koran over the
Eastern hemisphere, the auto-da-fe of the Spanish
Inquisition, the reciprocal burnings of Catholic
and heretic, and the present controversy of white
spirits and black. But it is not fair to the spirit of
toleration that England should suffer herself to be
made the laughingstock of Europe. High-Church
authorities may object, the bench of bishops may
protest, and the House of Lords may withhold their
sanction ; but if the bench of bishops had always
been allowed their own way, no revision of the
ecclesiastical courts would ever have taken place.
Some good has been done in that quarter, but much
more requires t be done. People have now
arrived at that stage of common sense when the
mountebank show of a man doing penance in a
white sheet, with a candle in his hand, can no
longer be tolerated, and, although such exhibi-
tions are of rare occurence, nevertheless they are
still on the statute-books of the Church, and such a
one did take place some years ago at the village of
Ditton in Cambridgeshire ; the sheet and candle
were dispensed with, but the scene which followed
this blasphemous tomfoolery surpassed in iniquity
the Sunday performances of St. George's-in-the
East. We desire that religion should be respected,
and maintain that it is the duty of the representa-
tives of her MAJESTY—the Head of the Church and
Defender of the Faith—to see that, under the cloak
of authority and religion, sectarian schemes arc not
permitted to bring ridicule and disgrace upon the
Church they profess to honour.

COWES, ISLE OF WIGHT.—May 11.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

ROYAL YACHT SQUADRON INTELLIGENCE.
The annual general meeting of the members of the
squadron takes place at the Thatched House Tavern on
Saturday next, when the arrangements will be made for
the Royal Yacht Squadron Regatta, and all other matters
connected with the squadron. There are nine candidates to
be balloted in.

The following members have been at the squadron house
this week :—Col. Armitage, Col. Smith, P. Percival, Esq.,
the Earl of Cardigan, Capt. Ponsonby, James Masse, Esq.,
and F. P. Deline Radcliffe, Esq.