The Sun.
London, England, 1867-06-08 00:00:00

Mothers and daughters of England and America,
this is our great fete, not because we are all holiday
taking at the Exposition of 1867, not because we
are in an age when the beauty of our womanhood
is.most courted, and our natural gifts heightened
by all the modern seductions of dress, expenditure,
and lavish idolatry ; we are to rejoice because the
privileges of our free nations have been proclaimed
by a foreigner, and held upby him as a banner under
which the Fenians have found protection and mercy.
I say mercy, not countenance.
Ah ! if men do possess the rights we are told they
have—liberty of conscience, liberty of the press,
liberty of meeting, freedom of speech—let women
never tire of praying, craving for all criminals,
whether sentenced for political or private offences.
Let our rights be those of suing for mercy, as Portia
did, and called it " dew from heaven." Let all we
know of free exchange be to save wives from widow-
hood in return for our entreaties, children from orphan
asylums in return for fervent solicitation that their
guilty parents be pardoned. When seine dreadful deed
has stigmatised humanity and our cheeks burn with
shame at the recital of a dread crime, while our
bosoms beat with indignation, let us give our lips
no utterance. When these things happen the hand
of God is already weighing on the guilty one ; and
if, on facing his glorious sun, we wonder how it
can shine on such infamy, let us remember that
could it darken it would do so, and recede when
mothers crowd to the scaffold and look on while
man's justice is taking revenge on an almost sense-
less criminal.
Well may we shudder when the so-called girls
of joy, with fixed gaze and painted faces, flit by us
in gilded state, but we may not be thus timorous
when we see the innocent babe held suckling on the
mother's bosom while she watches every agony of
the victim cast high on air by the city hangman.
This is crime. These are scenes which, if there
must be women speakers to uphold the rights of
woman, they should speak of.
we ,sigh when we hear of battle-
fields, of yofm youthfula warriors who have shed their
blood while defending their country's cause, but
energy, not sighs, do we owe to those of our own
sex who nightly, daily, hourly, wend their steps
towards brilliant drinking palaces, whence they
return hideous spectacles of degradation, and deface
the sweet image of our mothers. And other sins
there are which we do not cry to Heaven because
they are committed under the veil of ignorance, or
are unknown. There are parents who torture chil-
dren secretly, while ladies pity lap dogs, glut them
with delicate food, and hire footmen to carry
their treasures round the square. There are needle-
women who faint for want of bread over tinselled
satin, which their emaciated fingers embroider for
the great.

So let us ask for mercy, firstly, like Victor Hugo,
by appealing to man's better feelings, and then
wherever a woman's gentleavoice can send a thrill
of compassion through the hearts of rulers, whether
they be Sovereigns, or exercise power by right of
possession, influence, or birth.
And now I, too, in the name of the wives and
daughters of America and England, rejoice that the
lives of Cullinane, Burke, INl‘Clure, Al‘Afferty,
Kelly, and Joice. I rejoice not because they are
rebels, but because they have rebelled, and sedition
feeds on penal executions, but—
" S weet hymns of joy proclaim through Heaven, .
The triumph of a soul forgiven !"
These sweet lines should be 'my last this week, if
many of my readers had not particularly requested
should have given zoihe account of all that is
going on in Paris. They demand an unlimited
account of all, but as many will have heard of the
Emperor of Russia's triumphal entry in Paris era
this reaches London, I will try to give a sequel
to what abler writers have described, and pro-
ceed to say that the grandest eoup d'ceil was
certainly the Rue de la Paix. This street was
literally hung with pennons, flags, and armorial
bearings, while ladies in full dress, and holding
flowers, stood on balconies or at open windows, and
all the house-tops were covered with moving spec-
tators. Nearly all the aristocracy of England and
France, not in attendance at the Tuileries, were on
the balcony of the Hotel de Canterbury. Among
the ladies there I recognised the Duchess de
y o r
net iona mauve robe, maize tulle bonnet,
and u
a c hcmade of one mauve feather in front.
A o
was in light grey
Princess
Princess Alexandrine Gluka, a lovely blonde, with
d
eves,iiennt:iloletand black lace. Some of
the dresses were costumes of which the most strik-
ing features were broad sashes behind and apron
tunics in front. Bonnets were clouds of tulle en-
twined round the front with leaves and berries. The
most fashionable bonnet shade is brown, with a gold
ornament on the left side among tinted leaves and
wild fruit. Veils are unceremoniously tied over the
face and on the chignon behind hanging in long
ends. They are made of tulle of the same shade as
the bonnet.
The Empress welcomed Alexander 11. in the large
hall which precedes the Salon des Marecbaux at
the Tuileries. She was attired in light blue,
covered with a white lace manteau de tour. The
richest of her Majesty's toilets this season was the
one she wore at the Austrian Embassy last week.
It was straw-colour, and covered with flowers under
dew-drops, each of which was a diamond. On
this occasion the Princess of Prussia wore white and
lilac ; the Queen of the Belgians grey, black lace, and
feathers. The waltz which followed the official quad-
rille was one whirl of glittering precious stones, the
gardens were illuminated with electric lights, and a
rock over which a cascade fell all the evening was
bathed in ever-changing hue, first presenting the
appearance of a volcano, from which rolled burning
lava ; then again of a sea green grotto under the
silvery ocean. At half-past five, after the cotillon,
sun-rise was initiated by means of some pyrotechnic
mystery, the very perfection of art.
At the LonchamPs races, on Sunday, the greatest
display of dress ever seen kept crowds of curious
spectators for miles and miles in mute bewilder-
ment and motionless. Madme. Riulsky Karsakoff
passed in grey and cerise, the Duchess de Mouchy
in blue and Alegon. White was the predominant
feature, but over blue and pink, with
coloured
taffeta jerkins and slashed bodices. Some of the
prettiest were flounced, and plisee underskirts,
with over tunics drawn tightly back, and
tied in
two ends behind. White Alpaca, trimmed
with
any light taffeta, is as much worn as light silk. Jet
is still the f,krourit,2 ornament.

charges,
Booth's diary Ills been given to the world ; and
considering that it wholly refutes General Butler's
done sooner. It throws very little additional light
we are surprised that this has not been
on the horrible crime of its author, and is only of
interest in so far as it shows the working of his
mind after the perpetration of the deed. The en-
tries begin on the day of the murder, and close on
the 21st April, the only dates given. It furnishes
a striking instance of the state of mind into which a
man may work himself. At times he appears to be
overwhelmed with the horrors of his crime, when
he writes naturally and in a truthful and touching
tone. Then he appears to argue on the necessity of
freeing his country from the bonds of a tyrant,
whose advent to power was the signal for a fearful
war, and who if left undisturbed would fetter it
with a despotism. He speaks of his own bodily
sufferings, the broken splinters of his leg chafing
through his skin at every bound of his horse, on the
fatal night when he rode thus maimed through the
darkness full sixty miles from the theatre