The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

'1 he Times observes that it is startling enough in all
conscience, considering the magnitt de tho interests at
stake, to End that the great Overena and Gurney case is
in danger of coming to an untimely end, or, what would
be still worse, of being so conducted that its trial will
degenerate into an unmeaning farce. But, strange to say,
even the possible collapse of the case itself, extraordinary
as it would doubtless be, becomes of secondary impor-
tance, so far as the general public are concerned, when
compared with the circumstances which threaten to occa-

sion it. If, in consequence of these, the Overend and Gur-
ney case fall to the ground, it will not improbably con-
stitute almost as important an epoch in the history of
British jurisprudence as it has already constituted in the
history of British commerce, and we arc not without hope
that even the possibility of collapse, with which it is now
threatened, may do. more than whole volumes of essays
and speeches have hitherto done to make that great flaw
in our criminal system, the want of a public prosecutor,
generally felt. The Overend and Gurney case is at pre-
sent in this extraordinary position :—The directors, having
been committed by the chief magistrate of the city, and a
true bill having keen found against them ty the grand
jury, are awaiting their trial in the Court of Queen's
Bench. But while the prosecutor either cannot or will
not employ counsel, the Lord Chief Justice declares that

he shall not appear except by counsel, and the Lord
Mayor virtually declares that if he does nut appear
he shall forfeit £5,000. It is not too muc:i to
say that it would be a national disgrace to
let a trial involving interests of such magnitude to a

community eminently commercial fall to the ground

directly for want of funds, and indirectly through the
deficiency of our legal system ; and if it is obvious that the
conduct of the case by the Treasury is the only immediate
solution of the difficulty, we trust it is no less obvious
that the permanent remedy lies in the appointment of a
public prosecutor. Such a scandalous and calamitous
miscarriage of justice as that with which we are now
threatened, and which, if the Home Secretary should
persist in his refusal to supply funds, we may not even
now escape, could never have been possible but for our
system of private prosecution ; and since it is the national
habit to make reform depend upon the accidental obtrusion
of some glaring anomaly, we shall be throwing away an
admirable opportunity if we allow even a possibility that
such a scandal should occur again.

" Why is it that there is so much pauperism in this
country?" is a query of Mr. Bright's which the Post
answered s-nne few months ago. The answer may be
summed up in half-a-dozen words. It is because of the
activity of trade. Tracing back to its earliest sources the
progress of pauperism, it noted that with the development
of commerce there was a concurrent development of un-
avoidable poverty. Investigating, too, the more recent
cases of sudden and marked accessions of the disease, it
found that they happened contemporaneously with unmis-
takable convulsions in the world of trade. The conclu-
sion, then, seemed obvious and irresistible. The
price we paid for commercial greatness was an
aggravation of pauperism. In an equitable re-
arrangement of the system of local taxation, the
mercantile community should by some means or
other be called upon to contribute much more liberally
than they do to the maintenance of the poor. It is wrong
that the humble occupier should be overpressed past en-
durance on account of poverty which he has done nothing
to create, while the wealthy trader does not even pay an
equal share. It is not right that landowners and the
possessors of real property should mainly support that por-
tion of the poor resulting from the operations of their
prosperous commercial fellow-countrymen. The com-
merce of the country has vitality enough to bear its share
of the national burdens. The gains of trade have been,
and still will be, enormous. Let trade, then, contribute
more liberally than it does to the relief of that pauperism
which is one of its inevitable results. This should be a
marked feature in any future plan of reform.

The Standard thinks that whether Mr. Coschen's bill
will effectuafly relieve the poorer class of occupiers or not,
it is certainly proof against the intemperate criticisms of
Mr. Vernon Ifarcourt. Mr. Harcourt complained that
the bill was a " new Reform Bill," Lot apparently his
real objection to it is that it is not a new measure of
reform. With quite a superfluous vaunt that he was
" not afraid of residential manhood suffrage," the member
for Oxford seemed to find fault with the bill because it
did not embody residential manhood suffrage. But leaving
residential manhood suffrage in the bands of the Liberal
party of the future, it must be admitted that Mr.
Goschen's defence of the bill was perfectly successful
against Mr. Vernon Ifarcourt. It was not meant
to be an • enfranchising, but a relieving measure.
It could rot do both things, that is to say, remit the occu-.
pier's contribution to the public burdens, and at the same
time invest him with the privilege of a voice in public
affairs, without an entire recasting of our representative
scheme ; and for that the Ministry are not yet prepared.
The occupier did not come before us in the character of a
claimant for a political privilege, but as an applicant for a
certain indulgence in the mode of paying his raves. The
legitimate course is clearly for Mr. Vernon Harcourt to
bring in a new Reform Bill himself, in which residential
manhood suffrage shall be embodied. In the meantime; it
is a little unreasonable for the compound householder to
expect to be endowed with a new political privilege by the
very same instrument which discharges him of a civil

The Daily IVezcs says that among the symptc ms which
justify a cheerful, if guarded„contidence, we may point to
the meeting held at Exeter lull on Wednesday in favour
of the Trade Union Bill introduced into the House of
Commons by Mr. Thomas Hughes and Mr. Mundella.
The bill bears the name of one employer of labour upon a
large scale ; the meeting was presided over by another.
The presence of Mr. Samuel Morley in the chair shelved
not only a kind and generous temper, but also a wise fore-
sight. It is creditable to the trade societies by whom the
meeting was organised that they should have invited Mr.
Morley's presideuce, and it is equally to his honour that
be should have accepted the invitation. He and they
have acted in the interests of peace and good-will.
The object of the bill is, as Mr. Morley
ably and frankly stated, to leave to the members of trade
societies, as such, the liberty, and to subject them to the
restrictions which attach to all subjects of the Queen,
neither more nor less. Those who advocate a " short way
with the " trades unionists " as Defoe advocated, in
earnest or sarcasm, a short way with the Dissenters, are
in danger of sanctioning an inequitable law, which may
some day reach themselves. Principle can never safely
be sacrificed to temporary convenience, even if the conve-
nience be rightly estimated, .which is not always a matter
absolutely certain. The bill of Mr. Hughes and Mr.
Mundell,' is in its essential principles sound. The temper
of Parliament and of the capitalist class will be tested by
the reception it meets. For its own sake, and for the
sake of the wider and deeper social interests involved in it,
we hope that the spirit of the House of Commons will be
as good as that which was exhibited on Wednesday in
Exeter Hall.

The Star discusses the recent.meeting of the Dialectical
Society, at which Mr. House and other eminent media
enlightened the audience as to their prospects in the other
world. When questioned on the subject of future rewards
and punishments, Mr. Home augured badly for the
prospects of those persons who have had the misfortune
to be convicted of crime, as "he believed that spirits
retained their personal identity, and that a person with
cropped hair would appear cropped." But if we seek for
a comfortable certainty, for Positive and definite informa-
tion regarding the mysteries of the future, Mr. Damrain
is clearly the man. We arc to feed, he says, on spiritual
fruit, which is rather tantalisingly described as " nourish-
ment in the atmosphere." Spiritual boys go to school,
he ilifOr.ll3 us, and continue to grow until 35. We should
like, however, to know where the spiritual boys come
from, Mr. Damrain having previously stated that there
are no spirittuli children; and to get out of the difficulty
by asserting that a boy is• not.a. child unworthy of a
spiritualist. Perhaps he- Means' that a boy whdlias
not completed his education in this resumes it in a future
life, and if so, we shall feel inclined to dispute the asser-
tion that whom the gods love die young. Upon the
whole, the picture of a future state drawn by Mr.
Houle and his confreres is a gloomy one. Disembodied
spirits seem to work just as hard as our grosser selves,
though on what is, by a strange contradiction in terms,
called spiritual materials. Painters paint with spiritual
'pigments, mechanics make spiritual tables, &c.' and the
inference is forced upon us that the other world is nut a
much better one than that to which we are acenstomed.
As to the morals of its inhabitants we are left in the dark.
WiltMr, Home kindly inform us if be thinks that si,ine
of his spiritualist friends will be aliowed to.practjse in a
eltiritual way m:,on spiritual victims ; and will Mr.
Dauiraiu and the other members or the Thalectical Society
favour us with their opinions as to the probable perpetna•
tion of the conditions of gullibility in a future, state !

The Telfgrapit believes there is no douht that, in a few
days at farthest. the noose of C;,nitrions n ill be asked to
sanction a grant of six millions and a halt sterling, or
thereabouts, for the sati:,:faction of all claims, and ;lie
proper ermipment of the great t••;;;.r.tphic machinery to
lit. provided the state. 'Fite itata.m not only buys up
the right of It p:aticidat cornpnny to send nies-sages over
a det;neil ;it smtres irtua! monop"ly of evert'
distils:l; in th eont.tiy. and a c‘mtr:,,! of the
connt,-.1; CH, Col.t:Arni. 'lints tin
flt,ve!opment ,•f
I'r

~ra~ ;i

. t
ill tali to tt:e f th i•A
e nto arra In Cr,,,,.
<'t ti;alfy ; ltn•1 wh:.:ther the country i'ler:ves the ful
benefit ii, redo,,d charges, or in large Fever:lles accruing
to the Exchequer, either way it will gain a perceptilde and
always growing bertefi. Now, as a flatter of strict busi-
ness calculzltiou, it is clear that whatever expands tele-
graphic intercourse throughout the world must indefinitely
increase its amount ill that country which is the heart of
the world's industrial system— its exchange, bank, and
counting-house, its busy factory, its inexhaustible mine.
We hope, however, it is not over.sangnine to anticipate
that from the telegraphic movemet.t now in progress
England will be the greatest gainer ; and that our country
will soon he the centre r.f a vat network of cotnumnica
tion which shad embrace the earth and speed the vnwar
pal;sxenatot of halAane. - - • • -