The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-23 00:00:00

SDI

of the Public Journals.

(From. the Times of this day.)

Though we have read a few essays on human
knowledge_ and popular ignorance, on the powers
of the understanding, the unfits of though,;, and
other views of man, representing him alternately as
an eagle and a mole, a giant and a worm, we do not
remember to have se ea so interesting a chapter on
these subjects as the examination of Sir Ethuutid
Lyons before the Chelsea Board on Monday. To
the gallant Admiral's naval prowess and skill—
which, however, we should have liked to see rise
with command—we must now add a most remark-
able, power of seeing, observing, remembering, and
knerwing what he likes, as much as he likes, and in
wltiat shapes he likes. He can open his eyes, thaw
a film over them, or close them altogether ; he can
Isnow actually, officially, professionally, conjectu-
rally, or not at all, as he pleases ; and play these
various- descriptions of knowledge with as much
faeility as a chessplayer will at one time play a
queen or a pawn. At first sight one is led to imagine
that the vulgar myth which divides human beings
into landsmen and sailors, and supposes them
• utterly ignorant of one another, had some founda-
tion in fact, and that there really were people on
the one element who imagined that cavalry could
operate with advantage in the mid ocean, and, on
• the other hand, who believed horses to be only a
light description of craft, rather crank, and liable
to go before the wind. But Sir Edmund has evi-
dently been upon land, and has aided his powers of
observation by consulting other people more fami-
liar with that treacherous element. That he has
been perfectly successful in his choice of authorities
we do not venture to say, for we should have
thought that in the length of Piccadilly he might
easily have met a few landlubbers more knowing
in the ways of man and horse. But he has taken
some pains to assist his inexperience, and the efforts
he has made add somewhat to the different phases
of knowledge we have mentioned above.
Assisted, then, by a friendly landsman, who may
or may not be given to practical joking, Sir E.
Lyons has a decided opinion against the use of
sailcloth to protect horses from the weather. He
never heard of the idea till be found himself in
Chelsea Hospital the other day, it being the uni-
versal opinion in Greenwich Hospital that in foul
weather a horse, like a man, bad best go below
It would appear that the admiral had never heard
of a tent, or at least, that there were certain phy-
sical affinities between a horse and a man. We are
driven, however, from this last alternative, because
Sir Edmund had never heard a syllable about sail-
cloth being applied to the shelter of troops. As a
sailor, of course, he need not even have heard of a
tent, much less is be obliged to have seen one, or
to know what it is made of. By the aid of the
friendly landsman, however, he has acquired some
exact information. "To have put up canvass on
the plateau would have been totally useless, even
if we had the means, which we had not; it was
consequently never thought of." Sir Edmund got s
further. He cannot possibly admit that Lord
Raglan, who attached so much importance to the
efficiency of the fleet, would have made such appli-
cation. He also answers categorically that be
could never have furnished any such quantity of
canvass as would be necessary to provi 'e shelter
for 2,000 cavalry horses. Under the circumstances
Lord Raglan was not the man to make such a re-
quest. Considering, therefore, that Sir Edmund
never heard the idea suggested till he walked the
other daylo Chelsea Hospital, and is able to state
positively that it never occurred to anybody in the
Crimea, landsman or sailor, it is rather remarkable
that he should ales be able to state with equal cer-
tainty that he sails would have been utterly useless
—that L6riot Iteglan would never have asked for
them—that Ire could never have given them, and
that even had the idea occurred to anybody, and
had the sailcloth been asked and given, there were
no means of constructing shelter out of it. That
Sir Edmund should be so absolutely certain that
he had no sailcloth to spare is all the more remark-
able when it is considered that, on being asked the
question, he did not know how much he had—a
most singular instance of a definite conclusion on
indefinite premises. Sir Edmund is positive the
whole fleet could not have supplied sailcloth to
keep the wind off 2,000 cavalry horses ; but it ap-
pears—for Sir Edmund says he has no reason to
doubt it—that one 80-gun ship carries 7,844 yards
of canvass in the spare sails, and a quantity of old
canvass besi les. This latter, however, Sir Ed-
mund can state positively had all been sent on
shore for the use of the Naval Brigade, though he
had previously stated that he had never heard of
the application of sailcloth for the shelter of troops
—a nondescript animal, not to be confounded with
that very orthodox creation, a Naval Brigade.
Sir Edmund appears to think that he can never
get too many batteries to bear on one point ; and,
oven if an objection is logically sufficient, he heaps
twenty others on it. For three months the poor
helpless soldiers and the officers charged with
their discipline and care were grumbling away
in the most pitiable manner for want of some-
body just to tell them how to put things together,
and make the best of their situation. Ni'w,
sailors are proverbially handy. Indeed a sailor
is a very stupid fellow if he is not a carpenter,
a tailor, and a good deal besides. On board every
ship there is a staff of carpenters sufficient to set
the rest to work. Sir E lmund Lyons then is
asked two questions,—the first, whether he could
have supplied the army with carpenters to guide
them in their wretched attempts at hutting. To
this he answers, with his usual superabundance o'
positive knowledge, that the ships had not half
their complement of carpenters, that they ha I
sent half ashore to help at Balaklava, that there
were none to be got from the Admiralty, none from
Malta, none anywhere ; that all they had were
wanted, and more ; that all the carpenters in the
fleet were employed far a Diorite in mending the
rudder of the Royal Alt ert, almost under the ene-
my's guns ; and that—for it comes to this—had
half-a-dozen more carpenters been sent ashore, the
fleet would probable have drifted under the Rus-
sian batteries. But really this proves too much—
that is, too much on the supposition of a crew being
divided into sailors and carpenters, the fe it being
that probably a quarter of the sailors would be bet-
ter carpenters than the poor overworked, underfed
soldier; better carpenters, more handy, with tools
or without tools ; more eonversant with boards,
spars, spikes, cloth, rope, and tar, than the sol-
diers. Why, everybody knows that a discharged
soldier is nothing but a spoilt labourer, while a dis-
ciharged sailor, or even marine, is a Jack of all
Trads, able to make anything out of nothing. So,
how does the Admiral's answer meet the questi
even if it was of no possible use to send ashore a
party of professional carpenters, with planes, adzes,
augurs, squares, centrebits, and lathes ? Such,
however, is the redundancy of certain definite and
insuperable obstacles that Sir Edmund has ready
for this question ; though he is not so certain—it
does not come within his province—that the car-
penters on board the transports and merchant ships
might not have been hired. But he is asked the fur-
ther: question, whether carpenters might not have
been procured from Constantinople ? Here know-
ledge failsand opinion comes in. It is Sir Edmund's
opinion that no carpenters could have been pro-
cured from Constantinople ; indeed he tried and
got none ; there were none, and those whO were
there were wanted. No doubt, there are not many
carpenters at Constantinople who could fix the rud-
der of a 120-gun ship in a gale of wind, particularly
if they had pleasanter work offered them at better
wages ; but, to think of saying there are no car-
penters at Constantinople I Why, it is a city of
carpenters. Cobden describes it as a city of boxes,
open by day and shut by night. There are 80J,000
people living entirely in wooden huts, of which a
quarter, or thereabouts, are burnt down once in
five years, and built up again in two or three
months. Here are the very huts, the very artisans,
in d city described as having no carpenters ! The
thing is so obvious that, on the question being put,
Sir Edmund at once assumes the stiffest professional
attitude, and knows nothing about it. "Do you
not think," asks Col. Tulloch, " as Constantinople
is built of wood, that carpenters capable of putting
up framework must be numerous there, and might
have been procured in order to put up temporary
shelter ? ' To which Sir Edmund answers that he
does not know how an admiral on board a fleet was
to know this. He was only certain everything was
done that could be done.
Sir Edmund would hardly escape the credit of
being at the same time the blindest and the most
positive man in this country, but for what we must
call certain happy inconsistencies, to be explained
by the various applications of his professional or
official knowledge, information, opinion, or what-
ever mode of intelligence he brings to bear on the
question. He has the strongest opinion that all the
Rails in. the world would have been blown away
from the plateau before Sebastopol, bra when he
is asked whether sailcloth could not have been
employed in the Valley of Kadikoi, he takes in
sail at once, and answers, "It is a military
question,": and he does not like to enter upon it.
When, he is asked whether lie noticed any want of
promptitude or ingenuity in devising shelter for
the cavalry horses, his answer is that he did not,
because he noticed- particularly that Sir George
Brown, Colonel Wood, and a great many other
officers showed remarkable skill and industry in
sheltering their horses, by excavation or otherwise,
i nsomuch that they saved their horses thereby. Sir
Edmund does not explain how it was that if
A, B, C saved their horses by merely digging holes
for them the rest of the alphabet lost all their horses
miserably, without, however, exhibiting any want
of promptitude or ingenuity. On being pressed,

however, with the fact that some saved their
horses, and some did not, he answers, " My opinion
as far it goes, that there was no want of promp-
titude or ingenuity. On being pressed,lowever,
with the fact that some saved their horses, and
some did not, he answers, "My opinion is, as far
it g ies, that there was no want of prompitude, but
I cannot constitute myself a judge in military
affairs." This means, of course, that he knows
what answers the purpose, and ignores the rest.
That is all his closing address comes to. In order
to prove the thorough, ready, and effectual co-
operation of the services, the prompt applications
of the army and assistance of the fleet, he relates
the invaluable services of Lieutenant Goss, and
the invaluable assistance rendered by Lieutenant
Hawkins at a critical juncture ; and how that on
one occasion the ships of the fleet did actually
make 742 cots and frames in three days, and
how that Captain Heath, of the Sanspareil, under-
took and accomplished the roasting of the coffee
for the army, to Lord Raglan's great surprise
and admiration ; also how the same Captain Heath,
happening to observe that the animals died for
want of shelter, and hearing that 300 fine mules
were expected from Spain, offered from the re-
sources of the fleet to build stabling for those
animals; and Sir Edmund reads a letter, in which
Captain death says:—"As all our skilled carpenters
were already employed for the army, I did not like
to withdraw one of them, but I placed 30 or 40
seamen under the direction of a boatswain, and
they erected these stables." Sir Edmund adds,
simply enough, "I believe th it a great many of
the mules there sheltered are alive now." Then,
what becomes of the alleged impossibility of assist-
ing the army to make tents or huts for man or
horse ? It appears thus, on Sir Edmund's own
admission, that the officers could shelter their
horses, and the navy could help in the -same work.
Then, why was not this the rule, instead of the
very rare exception? Why were only' eight per
cent. of the horses saved and ninety-two per cent.
lost ?

(Prom th,e Times of this clay.)
The rejection of the Church Discipline Bill in
the House of Lords on Monday night was the re-
sult partly of what the bill superseded and partly
of what it substituted in its place. The 15th
clause was condemned by the whole body of English
bishops (though the Irish appear to have swallowed
it), on the ground that it superseded the authority
of the bishop in his diecee, and consequently the
episcopal constitution of the Church. "The 15th
clause," said the Bishop of Exeter—
" Distinctly withdrew authority from the diocesan
bishops, and vested it in the archbishop, at the pleasure
of the archbishop. It provided that any clerk against
whom a complaint was made might petition the arch-
bishop to bear and determine his cause, and that the
archbishop might, if he thought fit, hear and determine
it accordingly. Ht, appealed to the house to say whether
this clause did not remove the authority of the bishop
over the clerks in his diocese and vest it in the arch-
bishop."
This interpretation of the clause was disputed by
Lord Harrowby, " who took the liberty of pointing
out that under it the Archbishop was to exercise
only such authority 'as he might have done by any
statute or law before the passing of this act ;'" but
the Bishop of Oxford asked with some force, "If
it was intended to give to the Archbishop no more
power than he at present possessed, what was the
use of introducing the clause I" and, lastly, the
Lord Chancellor himself appeared to allow the
operation of the clause in his appeal to a provision
of the existing Church Discipline Act as a prece-
dent for it. The existing act introduces the juris-
diction of the Archbishop into the bishop's diocese,
in the special and particular case of the bishop
being the patron of the offending clergyman's liv-
ing. The proposed bill, then, would appear, by
the mover's own admission, to take up a particular
and exceptional ease of superseding a bishop in his
own diocese which the existing act supplies, and to
use it as a precedent for a regular and systematic
policy in the same direction.
We will not, however, undertake to grapple with
the wording of a bill which does riot appear to
escape the general fault of bills—that of being ill
and carelessly worded ; and therefore we will only
remark that if this is ie operation of the bill it ap-
pearsito us to be an objectionable one. Diocesan
episcopacy is not only the Constitution of the Eng-
lish Church, but has become by this time one of
the institutions of the country, like Queen, Lords,
and Commons, the twelve Judges, or trial by jury.
It is, moreover, as contrasted with a more centra-
lised church government, in harmony with our na-
tional bias for local administration and self-govern-
ment. The Lord Chancellor's bill, then, by its in
terference,' or appearance of interference, with the
diocesan principle, very naturally and justly ex-
cited a good deal of Ecclesiastical eloquence ; and
the Bishop of Exeter, not slow to take advantage
of such an occasion, scolded his Lordship with that
polite severity which is so familiar to him, and
almost excommunicated the Irish bishops, declar-
ing " that if the Church of Ireland looked upon
the principle of this bill as tolerable in a Christian
church, he could not hold himself in communion
with the Church of Ireland." As the Irish bishops
appear not only to have considered the principle of
this bill tolerable, but to have formally accepted
it, it might appear that this was a cam belli, and
that we might expect to hear of further proceeo-
ings from the bishop. But a rejection of the bill
will probably satisfy his lordship, and the Irish
Church will not have to contend at once with a
spiritual interdict from Exeter and an assault ori
her temporalities from Limerick.
The hill, however, was as much objected to on
account of the machinery which it created in the
place of the existing system as on account of wlia
it superseded. There were to be four Chancellors
appointed, with salaries of 3,0001. a-year each, be-
sides Secretaryships of 6001., to which the Chan-
cellors were to nominate. These officials were to go
about, like Judges of Assize, trying clerical del in
quents. Now, will anybody give himself the
trouble to calculate for one moment the real ex-
tent of ground over which the jurisdiction of these
officials will extend, and the amount of business
which it will supply ? There are, we Cupp
about 20,000 .clergy in England and Leland.
Tills body s c unposed of gentlemen, men of edu-
cation, aid men who by their profession are
bound to set the rest of the world a good ex-
ample. These 20,000 educated and respectable
gentlemen, then, are expected to employ the whole
time of four largely-salaried judges in the amount
of crime which they will supply, and the four
Chancellors are to sit eternallyjudging delinquents
from the orders of priests and deacons. Now, cer-
tainly, if they really had all this work to do, these
gentlemen would deserve their salaries ; not to
say, perhaps, that the extreme arid trying solem-
nity of their functions would of itself deserve some
compensation, on the principle that the chaplains
of burial-grounds are paid extra for the mournful
and grave tenure of their employment and the as-
sociations connected with it. These punishers of
clerical crime would stand in somewhat the same
relation to our common law judges that the chap-
lains of cemeteries do to the parochial clergy. But
by what stretch of imagination can any one suppose
that a body of 20,000 educated and respectable
gentlemen will_ furnish this• amount of cri ne ?
Take a town of 60,400 or 70,000 inhabitants;
is be one of our manufacturing towns, and let i
exhibit all the degradation, ignorance, and vice
which a promiscuous: population of this number
and class exhibits. Would not any one be sur-
prised at such a population as this being considered
to require the constant employnaent of four judges,
receiving 3,000/. a year each, to sit on the criminals
which itavould supply? What town in the coun-
try has-such a judicial staff assigned to it ? Then,
what but the blackest imagination could conjure
up an endless string of criminals out of a body of
20,000 picked men, ministers, spiritual pastors and
teachers, and lights in their generation ?
" The fact is said the Bishop of Exeter, "die bill
is an undeniable job. The Chancellors are to re-
ceive 3,000/. a year, but what is the number of
causes they are likely to have ? The average num-
ber of causes in England and Ireland does net exceed
six, so that there will be a trial and a half per annum
for each of the four Chancellors." To supply, how-
ever, some show of employment to these officials
central registries are to be erected in London and
Dublin, at a cost of 120,0001., and an annual ex-
eenditure of 48,9001., while the total amount of
fees upon marriage licences and from other sources
which are at hand to meet this expenditure is only
35,000/. The administration of stamps is another
make-up employment assigned to these officials.
No bishop is to do a single episcopal act without
stamps and-the signature of one of the four Chan-
cellors. He is not to give letters of Orders. He
is not to give Institution without the stamp or sig-
nature of a Chancellor. It is pretty plain what
sort of berths these Chancellorships would be; and
also, as the Bishop of Exeter seys " it is not diffi-
cult to foretell what would be
_the fate. of such a
bill in the House of Commons," But the upper
Rouse has saved the Lower one the trouble and
anticipated its decision.

REPRESENTATION OF NORTH ESSEX.—There is appa-
rentlY a strong desire the part of scone of the leaders
of the Lib, r,tl party to make an earnei.t ,-ffort to re-rieve
their pOsition in the Northern Divi,i in; A ietter was
lately Ainslie(' in our c lumns upon the subjefit ; an ! a
strong appeal from Mr. Barrett Lennart' appears in c ur
first page to-lay. The hon. gentleman says men will be
found t.) fight the baAle and lead the attack, Lilt he urges
that the notion must begin by the Liberal electors evinc-
ing more Activity, and looking to their own organisation.
_Enac Herald.