The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

This is what the Times says with respect to the fearful
outrage of Friday, an outrage whose memory can never
be erased from the mind of British public opinion :—We
desire to abstain from any language which could cause an
indiscriminating and unreflecting feeling of indignation;
but we cannot but observe that this crime removesall doubt
As to the nature of the struggle in which we are now en-
gaged. Our path will no longer be obscured by the shadow
of political considerations. The Fenians have cast the glare
of a great moral crime upon the debatable ground which
separates us, and we can no longer hesitate in what direc-
tion to advance. No man deserving of the name will ven-
ture to adduce political discontent in palliation of such
an outrage as that of Friday. It excludes all consider-
ations but one, that of protecting by every possible
method the elementary rights of humanity. Warfare,
however desperate, is not to be waged by these means,
and if there can be any reasonable and responsible per-
sons still engaged in the Fenian conspiracy, they are as
much interested as we ourselves in putting clown such
atrocities. It is fair to notice that Burke and Casey them-
selves, when brought up before the police-court on Saturday,
protested their abhorrence of the means which had been
employed on their behalf. On the most favourable view,
however, they cannot shake off the responsibility of having
employed agents who have proved capable of such an out-
rage. If they are proved to have taken part in organising
the Fenian conspiracy, they cannot escape the guilt of
having deliberately let loose on this country a set
of wholesale murderers. This is the fact we must now
steadily face, and which has been indelibly imprinted on
the public mind. We are confronted by a gang of reck-
less criminals, who respect no laws, human or divine.
We are far from saying that this is the character of all
persons who have joined the Fenian movement, or that no
other motives are to be taken into account in estimating
its origin. But we are justified in saying that this is its
practical issue at the present moment. - That and
nothing better is what it has come to ; and we must
also add that those who, after this exhibition of the
characters who have been called together by the
conspiracy, continue to belong to it cannot be ex-
cused from full responsibility for all its consequences.
We can have no parley with men in an attitude of menace.
We must crush that at any cost. This is the first con-
dition of political life, and is nowhere so essential or so
justifiable a principle as in a country like our own. We
have free constitutional forms by which all classes are
placed on an equality, and through which all may make
known their wrongs and enforce their rights. To these
forms we refer all appellants, and to these all must be
compelled to submit. This outrage, therefore, will at
least have the advantage of simplifying the course of
the Government, and strengthening their hands. They
cannot now hesitate in exerting the utmost vigour of the
law, and they will be justified in doing so, not merely in
order to punish the perpetrators of the worst crime of
modern English history, but to crush a conspiracy of
which such outrages, we cannot hesitate to say, are the
natural fruit.

The Post, in a leader on the absorbing topic of the day,
speaks of Fenianism as a conspiracy which must now be
dealt with in earnest. Still retaining the semblance of
the self-devotion with which it started, the unscrupulous
adventurers who head it turn it to other purposes.
Linable to compass their original designs, anarchy,
terrorism, and plunder become their object, in the
destruction of all order and civil peace. If this secret
society, which is the first of its class we have expe-
rienced in England, is not at once stopped and trampled
out, we have a future before us such as is not pleasant
to contemplate. Continuous infractions of the law .of
the most daring nature, and the consequent gradual intro-
duction of the military and police system of the Continent
into cur free institutions, would become unavoidable—the
glory of the nation would have departed. We must, then,
fight this rising danger without hesitation, without fear.
We can afford to deal with Irish grievances without relax-

ing our efforts to drive out Fenian conspiracy. No matter
what Government may be in possession of Downing-
street, its duty is obvious—immediate and careful legisla-
tion for Irish complaints ; certain and swift punishment
for England and Ireland's disturbers.
The Herald trusts that the researches which are now to
be made, the reward which has been offered, and the
careful examination of the suspected criminals, will soon
enable the Government to put its hand on this nest of
murderers. Upon such men all sympathy will be thrown
away. We will have no funeral processions to com-
memorate their fate. Our business is to crush the nest of
vipers which has warmed itself at our bosom, which
from a strange country has imported strange horrors,
which, to win Ireland for the Irish or for the Iris.
Americans, thinks nothing of putting London in
mourning or laying England in ruins. Our Govern-
ment is fully awake at last to the gravity of the crisis.
Fenianism has been dignified as patriotism, and depre-
cated as sedition. We know now that it is but another
name for murder—wholesale murder. The demonstra-
tions which were to be made on Sunday in several towns
of England and Ireland, in memory of the men who
were so justly hanged at Manchester, were very properly
forbidden by the authorities. No " funeral processions"
took place at Liverpool or Leeds, at Killarney or at Cork.
Though the news of the Clerkenwell outrage, if it had
reached those towns, must have suggested a long train
of such processions to come, we are charitable enough to
these misguided sympathisers with a wicked cause to
believe that the crimes of their leaders had so filled
them with horror that they shrank from a demon-
stration which would have implied their fellowship with
assassins.

• While, says the Daily News, it is impossible to exag-
gerate in a political point of view the effect of the recent
Fenian outrages, there is equally no question that they
have a serious bearing upon trade: Commerce can Napport
and overcome many evils, bat popular disturbance and
uncertainty are drawbacks that in these days at least are
not easily withstood. No one cares to buy or sell when
the whole current of affairs may be suddenly altered
by some unforeseen event against which it is
im-
possible to provide. Probably the present agitators
reckon upon such a result. They must have heard that
trade is one of the vital sources of English prosperity, and
may imagine that the more they can injure it the better
for their cause. A series of movements that may reduce
half the factories in Lancashire to short time, and propor-
tionally diminish the iron and coal supply, form a desperate
but an intelligible mode of warfare. It may be said
that Fenian outbreaks are not likely to damage our
internal trade to a very great extent, since there must
always be a certain interchange of commodities. We
wish but cannot believe it. Our foreign commerce, how-
ever, will chiefly suffer. The telegrams that by this time
have conveyed the news of the Clerkenwell prison explo-
sion to nearly every country in the Old and New World
will indirectly affect the credit of even our most eminent
hankers and merchants in London. To a foreign mind
the impression conveyed will be simply that there is ar
end to English security.
'What may be the secret fancy of the Fenian chiefs in •
promoting these deeds is, as the Standard says, difficult
to surmise. If they think to frighten the Government or
'the nation, they are, of course, simply demented ; if they
think to keep a " cause " alive by a series of dastardly
murders, they mistake the times in which they live. This,
however, is hardly the occasion for inquiring into their
motives or hopes. It is a trite thing to say, but it is all
that for the moment can practically be said, that the vigi-
lance of the Execntive must, both for the sake of dispelling
extravagant alarms, and for that of diminishing the public
danger be incessant • ' that the authorities must not shrink
from their responsibilities ; that the law must make the
weight of its hand unmistakeably felt ; and that with the
facts of these atrocities before us we cannot, in any fair-
ness or in common sense, begrudge the Administration any
discretion with which it may be constitutionally invested.
The Government of England has a power and a meaning,
and that power ought not to be brought into contempt, or
that meaninc, misunderstood. Nor upon either point
does our contemporary entertain the slightest fear.
Is not, asks the Star, the calamity of last Friday one
to give pause to all true and manly Irishmen who may
have felt tempted to lend their countenance to agitation
which begins by law-breaking? Is not any agitation
accursed which developes such crimes ? Perhaps even
Friday's horrors may not be without some com-
pensating result if they compel Irishmen in general
to acknowledge that only in the path of peaceful
progress can anything good for themselves or their
country be obtained. For if Irish rebellion have really
come to this, if it is to be carried on by the murder of
women and the mutilation of children, what Irishman is
there with heart or brain who would not declare himself
for ever on the side of law and order? Certainly, the pro-
cess of debasement, even in rebellion, must be wonderfully
rapid to-produce such results as these! From Wolfe Tone,
captured in honourable fight, sword in hand—from Lord
Edward Fitzgerald, the chivalrous gentleman whom
English statesmen lamented ; nay, from Smith O'Brien
and Meagher—what a distance must Irish rebellion have
traversed to come down within so short a time to the mis-
creants of Friday's massacre ! Ireland is, indeed, just
now to be pitied. If these are her friends, tell us who
else are not her enemies. We cannot but believe that this
clued will produce a reaction and a revulsion in the feeling
even of Irish rebels. It would be aBl n against human
nature to suppose that there can exist anywhere many
creatures so utterly base and w:c:-:ed as they who planned
and they who perpetrated the crime waver which now all
England shudders.
- -

The fact of Dr. Kencaly having thrown up his brief
because he was not certain that Burke did not sympa-
thise with the Clerkenwell outrage, is commented upon
by the Telegraph, which tells the learned counsel that he
'Was in court as an advocate and not as a judge. :even
supposing Burke's friends to have been implicated, that
was no reason for withholding legal services from Burke
himself. Because a man's friends may have been suck
villains as to blow down a house and kill several people, that
is no reason why he should be refused the means of freeing
himself from a criminal charge on another and a totally diffe-
rent matter. But that is precisely what Dr. Kencaly did
refuse, in so far forgetting the etiquette of his profession
as to withhold his legal assistance. Nay, not content with
saying that he would not defend his client, he made a
speech which was more damaging to his client than it
would have been if he had been counsel for the prosecu-
tion. It is amazine, that a man of Dr. Kenealy's ability
and experience should have committed such a blunder, and
equally amazing that be should have defended it on such
arounas. - • - •

-
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HER MAJESTY.

WINDSOR CASTLE, pee' 15;g.
The Queen, Prince and Princess Christian, fri.,
cess Louise, Prince Arthur, Prince Leopold, rr:6
cess Beatrice, and Princess Henrietta of SohleslT:g;
Holstein, and the Ladies and Gentlemen in Wrilitin'
attended Divine service this morning in the Privat;
chapel.
The Very Rev. the Dean of Westminster pre°bed
the sermon.
Prince and Princess Christian and Princess Wl'
riette remained to luncheon with the Queen. b 6
Prince Christian honoured the officers of
Ist Battalion Grenadier Guards with his cola,
at dinner in the Sheet-street Barracks on Fri` '
evening.

---
His Excellency the Turkish Ambassador Olt
Musurus do not leave their residenco a
Roehampton for town till about tho middle of robrtryll,
when they will return to the Turkish Embassy f°/.

permanency. ill
The Duke and Duchess of Northumberlan-1
tend to leave Alnwick Castle, their princely neat t),
north, to-morrow, for Albury Park, Surrey, where tile/
purpose to pass the Christmas.
Viscount and Viscountess Boyne, on leLtillto
town at the close of the Parliamentary session, 1013 and
Brancepeth Castle, Durham, where the noble viscount.
viscountess intend to pass tho winter.
Lord Eliot, M.P., left town on Saturday for r°rl
Eliot, Cornwall.
Lady Henrietta Allen and the Misses Allen baole
arrived at their residence in Chesham-stroet, from Fitlg
Castle, Perthshire.
The Earl and Countess of Warwick and
for
have arrived at Nice, whore they intend to remain
winter.
The Earl and Countess Amherst and diet
Amherst have left Montreal, the family seat near Scillefil;
oaks, for the Continent, and intend to pass several 00
abro ad.
The Earl and Countess of Shaftesbury Aacl
i,t.lii.y °
Ladies Ashley, who have boon staying several days in `-it
on their way southward, were to leave the French 08P;
on Saturday for Nice, whore they aro expected to rem`
from six weeks to two months. • ./1
fp.
The Marquis and Marchioness of Bath Arrl'ye
in town on Friday from Chatsworth, where they 111
been visiting the Duke of Devonshire.

CHARLES DICKENS AT BOSTON!

A Special Telegram, under date Boston, -Li
rl
';
her 2, 1867, 11.30 o'clock p.m., to the New
Herald, thus relates the first appearance ofto
Dickens in the Tremont Temple at Boston, and
complete success of his readings :
Mr. Dickens's first reading took place this efe:e:
ing at Tremont Temple, according to ano°ll/3,
meat. It was a success in every possible res Pee
Tthd
pecuniarly, artistically, and fashionably
tigh
weather was just stormy and unpleasant en° de,
out of doors to make almost any interior seem to
liciously cosey, yet it was not stormy en°llg
frighten the ladies into those precautions in red
to dress that might have taken all the briltlo
and colour out of the picture, So the Teeir
bloomed freshly and richly in toilets, and ratlath3o
suited the most difficult taste by their very var`eti„A
The pieces read were a ti Christmas Carol,'' 900
the "Trial of Bardell versus Pickwick," from
"Pickwick Papers." They were read with coestilog
mate skill, and the effect in securing and carry
with the reader the sympathies of his hearers sr,
beyond whatever the warmest admirers of d
Dickens had conceived possible. The comPhlneio
in applause was extravagant ; and this was a °Bo
which extravagance in compliment was perhaps
offence against taste, even in the eyes a the le'
amiable of satirists.
r'afj
'Fite scene outside was all animation. Car-I:ot
began to arrive in profusion at a quarter Pabt
seven o'clock, and a few minutes before et ht,
o'clock the human freight which they had Vivi
together with the pedestrian arrivals, had 10:1
nearly all the soats in the Temple. The tie
ed
office was then opened, and some ten hundred
tickets for standing room were quickly disPesoi
of, the eager purchasers having patiently 03l 0
,1
for the same for an hour or more. At no time "
11
there any great crowd or confusion about the - joo
Very few assembled who had not secured admissote
before coming, and if there had been any moderto,
rush of the curious they would have been out°lll
bered by the police, who were there in force to rearbt
any demonstration that an eager multitude olgria
have made. Indeed, when all were gathered ato
seated, awaiting the reader, the scene was 011°de ,
which happy and expectant faces gave the Pre
00,
minant tone. All the world of literature, of fasillot.
and much also of the world of politics, were pre
The Governor of Massachusetts stood for the P,e,l
tics, all the handsome ladies of the city Pre-sem
tote
fashion in a most attractive mood, while literal
and science were represented by Agassiz,
Longfellow, Lowell, and Holmes.
nifort'
About two thousand people were seated co— 06
ably in their places at eight o'clock aweitiegood
coming of Mr. Dickens. The hall, a light It
pleasant one, was filled to its utmost capacitPrrail
is a hall that presents a very pleasant cow foy
when filled. The gallery, rising very grace .0
from the further wall of the lower portioh
giving a good distance from the very foot °f vtlet
reader's desk to the limit of this distance, vtif
one delightful perspective of happy faces. Pren2,loi4
at his hour Mr. Dickens came. He was clad in 6Y C$
,4 010
dress suit, with a white necktie, and wore 10'7, tits
of a neutral tint. His head and face sb"grel
finger of Time in deepening lines and coming a he
—for the colour has gone from the thin Warhead
wears on his chin and from his moustache. Ili° 110
t
is bald on the top, and the hair remaining If to
sides is brushed energetically forward, as Atli
show a spirit in what remains. He stepped l'reorl'
and quickly across the platform to the oat'
ing desk, and his coming was the signal for an It
burst of applause that lasted some moment too
gained strength as it was kept up, and wen
lit of
hand to mouth till from the ordinary e1e,040.1
clapping hands it became quite an ovation of c"
the subject taking it all with easy dignity thil
From the reader's standpoint the sight sable.
pleasant reception must have been very agreelooo'
So soon as the pleasant little storm of We 0001
ing applause had passed away, Mr. Dickeoses Aro
rapidly forward with his reading. Both Piee:eti
of
highly dramatic in dialogue, with great Yar',.,ree'
character, the " Christmas Carol" the more ""iola
ably so of the two. All listeners vier°oogef
moment in the very presence of Old Scr
of his patient, light-hearted clerk, the
apd
Nephew, the ghost of Marley, Tiny Tiniiojol.
the Conversational Boy under the We'
It is hardly correct to say that Mr. Dicke lot *4
'this story. He told it—he told the story J..cactgt
common-place persons will tell any little and font
givin tho
g, with more or less succors, the air
..1f
of such speaker as they may introduce,
110
Mr. Dickens presented the individuality
000
speakers with such well-defined lines, with Orel
vivid conception of the identity of each tltete°
became real—and no one of his dozen oBLI eel?:
following closely through the hour beeausotit
fused with another. Each had a differe
a
and many a different tone of voice, 0 who
rent face, so that the recognition of ,0a
was speaking in the story was as read/i:
Abe
easy as if each had walked on in per° 00 la
r
reader was frequently interrupts 11„._00o, a,.t
plause and centinued laughter of the au°' t pet
when, in the Pickwick trial, he came to th3sarelleo
where the clerk calls " The next witness'
ought
Weller," the very name of this favourite Frovi3oooe,
genial,recoguition from every bend ill te_t
To our thinking, all the persons in Trera:),
wale
pl.) through the whole reading and at its, );litiroottori
as full as possible of merriment and goo °, ,1„1
keen for the most dainty jest or lightest
word, and fairly bubbling with thsPirltioilloalltef
ao
taneous, general, contagious, epidemictalae It
„e 0
Happier men or more delighted women) to t
v all ea ~ouil
or cities, lying between Eichmon
ether, could not he found in all the
d_liiii