The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-24 00:00:00

nuous advocate of the voluntary principle could
scarcely ask for more, or, if so, the demand has
been anticipated. Of course, where property has
been legally dedicated to certain purposes, it
should be scrupulously applied thereto, unless
some principle of morality or decency be
violated. But neither the Government nor
Government servants should act as trustees
or executors, should give official encouragement
to what is radically wrong. There should be no
direct connection with what we believe to be
idolatrous ceremonies. Without interfering in
any degree with the funds, the management
thereof should be entrusted to those who could
cordially and conscientiously concur in the objects
to which those funds were dedicated.

No man should be rejected because of his reli-
gion—no man should receive an appointment or
be promoted besause he thought proper to
abandon what he believed to be errors ; but there
is no reason why we should identify ourselves
with such errors, by managing the funds provided
for their extension.

Last night the Royal Assent was given to
sundry bills, sufficient to prove that although some
time was lost by the change of Ministry, more
was accomplished than during any recent session
under Whig Government. We need scarcely
allude to the Property Qualification Act, under
which an honourable gentleman has already taken
his seat, without making any declaratiom respect-
ing his possessions, whereby by one, and not the
least important, of the popular demands has been
gracefully conceded. Nor shall we speak here of
the India Bill, which has now passed, with some
trivial amendments which cannot lead to a
collision between the Houses, and which
will thus practically solve the great
problem requiring immediate solution. But we
may with pride refer to the Jews' Bill, under
which we trust that Baron ROTHSCHILD may take
his seat on Monday evening, and of which we
have been the earnest advocate for the last twelve
years.

Tho Act merely authorises what might have
been done by the sole authority of the House of
Commons. The representatives of the people were
just as well entitled to dispense with that portion
of the oath which was merely formal, and which
related only to the manner in which it could be
rendered binding on the conscience of the party,
while the adjuration extended to the entire sub-
stance, as they were to permit Messrs. PEASE
and BRIGHT to make an affirmation in place of
taking an oath. The rule was essentially the
same in both instances. The House was the
sole judge of its own privileges; and, but for the
moral timidity of Lord JOHN RUSSELL (we shall
not call it cowardice), the British Metropolis
would have been saved from partial disfranchisemen t
for a dozen years, and the representative branch
of thz, Legislature would have received the cc-
operation and assistance of a gentleman of whom
his fellow-members might well be proud. As it
is, we have got rid of an unpleasant and annoy-
ing difficulty, and the imminent chance of a col-
lision between -two of the co-ordinate powers of
the State has been averted. The Oaths Bill has
also been carried. It is, however, the play
of Hamlet, with the omission of the leading
character, still it removes great anomalies, and is
a good measure per se, although the object for
which it was mainly contested has been achieved
by a different machinery.
The -Victoria Station and Pimlico Railway Bill
also become part and parcel of the statute law of
the land. The opposition at one time offered was
eventually withdrawn. Neither the imaginary
reduction of the tolls of the new suspension
bridge, nor its quasi (esthetic claims prevented that
which might be regarded as a boon to all classes
of the community, from "the select upper crust to
, the unmitigated tag-rag and bobtail." Bat some-
thing more was done than merely giving railway
accommodation. The bridge is to be thrown
open free for every pedestrian on every Sabbath
and on certain holidays. The Park at Battersea
will thus be really rendered a people's park—OA
uew lung to the metropolis. Those who
earn their daily bread by their daily
labour, to whom every penny is of consequence,
cannot readily incur an expenditure of 61, which
would be required to free the paterfamilias, his
placens uxor, and four pledges of affection
through the toll-bar. The Park invites him, but
it is a land of promise into which lie cannot
return ; he regards it with a yearning heart, but
must be contented with a distant view. Now,
he may go on Sundays, and we trust the salutary
effect of the experiment will be such as to extend
the privilege to every day in the week, and to
render Battersea-bridge free as Westminster or
Blackfriars.
We shall only add that these advantages are
due to the fortunate change which displaced
Lord PALINLERSTON, and substituted Lord DERBY
; and his tfficient coadjutors.

There is evidently work enough before the ne
Indian Secretary and his Council, if they are dis-
posed to do it ; and Lord STANLEY is not the
man we take him to ba if, before Parliament
meets again, he have not initiated some measures
in the administration of India itself, which will
not allow his name to be soon forgotten, or his
services lightly dispensed with. His zsal as a
social reformer will now be, and ought to be,
absorbed in reforming the condition of the mil-
lions of ludia. That is quite charge enough,
and more than enough, for any man ; and we
only hope that he will give himself to it with the
patient diligence in mastering the fat's and da•
tails of a case, and with the single-minded
honesty for which the young Statesman has
already acquired a deserved reputation.
We have but just called his attention to the
horrible manner in which our courts are made
instrumental in the sale of very young Malw-
medan girls for purposes of prostitution, and of
their offspring for perpetual slavery. We gave,
in our impression of yesterday, an extract from a
letter, written by a Calcutta missionary of high
standing and long Indian experience, whose
name we are not at liberty to give, but whose
statements may be, we are informed, entirely
relied on. They give us the principal details
of a mode of legal oppression practised by the
zamindars, after reading which it is impossible to
wonder that the peasantry, or ryots as they are
termed, should feel very indifferent about per-
petuating the blessings of British rule. They do
not, it seems, think that we intentionally coun-
tenance the grinding oppressions of the zemindars,
and their defiance of law by means of the law
itself ; but they must feel that, if we cared much
about them, we could very soon inflict summary.
justice on such scoundrelism, by the aid of the
courts themselves, as that we refer to.
What would an English farmer, whose rent had
been fixed by a long lease or otherwise, think of
some such proceeding as this. His landlord makes
a demand for, say 25 per cent. more rent. He
of course refuses. He is served with a writ. He
resorts to the court whence it issues, but on his
way thither one of the county police seizes him,
and warns him and
beats him, sendsi_him home,