The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-10 00:00:00

7IIE EX-LORD MAYOR PHILLIPS.

Yesterday an influential deputation from the
JeWish community in the City of London, at the
head of whom was the venerable Sir Moses Monte-
fiore, presented two magnificent candelabra of solid
silver and of great value to Sir Benjamin Phillips.
Each of the testimonialsis constructed to carry seven

lights, and much skill is displayed in the arrange-
ment of the figures in relief and in the general design
and ornamentation. They bear the following inv.rip-
tion :—" Presented to Sir B. S. Phillips, Knight,
Alderman of the ward of Farringdon-within, by the
members of the community, in testimony of their ap-
preciation of the admirable manner in which he sus-
tainei and graced the office of Lord Mayor of the
City of London from November, 1865, to Novem-
ber, 1866, thereby eminently maintaining the high
character of the Corporation and entitling himself
to the support and thanks of his brethren." Sir
Moses Montefiore, who was the spokesman of the
donors, said he was deputed by their common friends
to represent them on the occasion. He had to pre-
sent to Sir Benjamin a
memorial of the appreciation
of their whole community of the able and successful
discharge of the arduous duties of chief magistrate
of the City of London. He was sure he expressed
the gratification of others as well as his own
when he said that in the fulfilment of his high
office it was Sir Benjamin's especial object to
show that the exercise of their municipal func-
tioos was compatible with their reverence of their
holy religion. The energy and intelligence mani-
fested by him in the discharge of his high magis-
terial duties had conduced not only to his own honour,
but also to that of the community to which both
of them had the happiness to belong. They did
not call upon him to look upon the gift as having
any value beyond the respect and regard of their
co-religionists, which it was meant to indicate, and
they invited him to accept it in that light. Sir
Benjamin Phillips, in reply,
said he knew by long
experience how grateful members of his community
were to any one who, in however small a degree,
contributed to advance their social and political con-
dition. There was no phase of their remarkable and
touching history that did not reveal an unbroken
and an unalterable sympathy with each other, and
the beauties of that faith which in every country
and under all circumstances bad bound them
together for one great and sacred purpose. He
should cry by every act of his life to justify the
esteem in which he was held by
the great and an-
cient community to which he belonged, as symbo-
lised by their munificent gift, which was greatly en-
hanced by being presented by one so eminently dis-
tinguished among them as Sir doses Montefiore.

coast among the Channel Islands which, although
badly hung, being almost out of sight, has such
genuine merit that it was bought immediately."
FRANK LESLIE tells us :---" Albert Bierstadt, the
landscape-painter, has sailed for Europe." It adds :
We saw a few days since a picture lately finished by
him, the subject taken from a passage of wild nature
in the Far West. It is a scene rather of prairie than
of mountain character, though there are steep bluffs
and distant mountain ranges included in the com-
position. The foreground of the picture is an ad-
mirable realisation of the herbage and flora peculiar
to the great plains ; and, for feeling and sympathy
with nature, it is superior, we think, to any of the
artist's larger and more ambitious pictures.—Anglo-
American Times.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The Reform Bill has passed through
committee. Yesterday afternoon, at half-past six
o'clock, the final schedule was adopted, the preamble
was agreed upon, and the Chairman was ordered
to report the bill to the House. One solitary voice
—said to be Mr. Beresford Hope's, but, at any rate,
proceeding from below the gangway on the Minis-
terial side—answered " No" to the question that the
bill be reported; but the thankfulness and satisfac-

tion of the mass of members were expressed by
cheering which drowned all symptoms of dissent.
The bill has virtually passed the Commons. On
Friday it will be considered on the report, and there
is on the notice book a string of amendments,
which will, doubtless, be increased in length before
Friday comes ; but we may be confident that nothing
beyond formal amendments will be adopted. The
House sees the end of its labours in view, and would
be apt to treat with some asperity any one who in-
terposed without grave reason to justify the delay
his motion might occasion. It is understood that
Friday is to be given up wholly to the Reform Bill
if necessary. Should the sitting in the afternoon
prove insufficient, private members will be asked to
forego their privileges, so that the clauses of the

bill may be finally seitled before the end of the
week. On Monday the third reading will be pro-
posed, and we trust that on Tuesday or Wednesday
the bill may be carried to the other House of Par-
liament. It was manifest to all when the committee

met yesterday afternoon that they meant to complete
their labours before the sitting was suspended. No
mercy was shown to members who attempted to
persist in proposals meant for no purpose but to
satisfy the self-importance of some section of their
constituents. Mr. Locke's clause for regulating
the demand of Rates was alone seriously dis-
cussed, and it was at length accepted, modified
by some considerable amendments suggested by
Mr. Hardy. It will be remembered with what
heat the necessity of a formal demand was urged
a fortnight ago. It was said that the Govern-
ment was pledged to bring forward and press
upon the Committee a provision insuring a per-
sonal demand of rates from every ratepayer, so
. .

that no person otherwise qualified as a voter might
lose his privilege because he had overlooked the
necessity of paying his rates, and the overseer had
not warned him that he was in arrear. It was de-
clared, when the Committee rejected a clause which
would have practically enfranchised all the poorest
because of their inability to pay the rates due from
them, that this question re-opened the whole ques-
tion of the Borough Franchise. Milder counsels
yesterday prevailed. Mr. Gladstone did, indeed,
once more bewail the extinction of the Compound
Householder, but he quickly passed from this dan-
gerous ground, and contented himself with arguing
against the sufficiency of a general notice posted on
the doors of places of worship and advertised in
local newspapers. A general notice would not do,
he urged, because it did not tell the amount to be
paid. It seems sufficient to answer that a notice
which stated the amount levied in the pound would
give each ratepayer all the information he would
need, as ratepayers in general, and certainly all
those whose political privileges are supposed to be
endangered by want of punctuality in payment,
know with perfect accuracy the rateable value of
the houses they occupy. The Committee appeared
to be of this opinion, for after some discussion Mr.
Hardy's amendment was assented to, subject to the
common condition of further consideration, if ne-
cessary, on the report. This practically terminated
the business of the afternoon. Those who ven-
tured to stand in the way of the Committee after-
wards, and they were not many, made proposals
which for the most part came, according to
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, within the
scope of the Boundary Commission ; and this
explanation was at once accepted as a reason
for abandoning the proposals. The schedules
were ahead, and the Committee was eager to
attack them, but, as it soon appeared, not from
any desire to alter them so much as from a wish to
have done with the Bill. One of the most serious
amendments to Schedule B turned on the Question
whether a future borough of the North country
should be called Hartlepool or The Hartlepools, and
Mr. Disraeli recommended that the final settlement
of this grave matter should be deferred until the
report, by which time the wishes of the inhabitants
might be ascertained by telegraph. Mr. Henniker-
Major's proposal to trisect Suffolk was negatived,
as anticipated, without discussion ; Mr. Ayrton
postponed his suggestion for the enfranchisement of
Wandsworth, and the claims of Lowestoft, Rother-
ham, Doncaster, and Keighley were rejected as
summarily as the pleas for grace put forward on
behalf of Lichfield, Hertford, Bodmin, and other
ornaments of Schedule A. The schedules were
added to the bill without a single alteration beyond
re-naming the new divisions of Somerset, and the
adoption of the preamble crowned the edifice of
Reform. There was a general desire on both sides
of the House that the report should be taken to.
morrow, but Mr. Disraeli very properly deferred to
the remonstrances of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Gran-
borne, and postponed it till Friday. The bill itself
will not be reprinted till this afternoon, and it is
plainly desirable that some opportunity should be
afforded of communication with the constituencies,
lest clauses should be
permanently embodied in the
bill which would produce undesigned local incon-
venience. The Reform Bill, as amended by the
committee, will be distributed among the members
of the House of Commons this afternoon, and if the
pertinent suggestion of Sir Rainald Knightley be
acted upon, it will be accompanied with a reprint of
the measure as originally introduced. It is, perhaps,
too much to expect that the Government will be
anxious to exhibit the contrast between their first
draught and the complete scheme concocted in
committee, but the means of comparing the two are
within the reach of all, and the comparison will
doubtless be studied, not without effect, before
Monday. Sir Rainald Knightley observed that
a document containing in parallel columns the
original and the amended bills would be of curious
historical interest, but this is a faint description of
its value. It would be to some extent an explana-
tion of Parliamentary tactics, and still more of the
power of a movement once started to carry away
with it those who set it in motion. Having urged
the necessity of a generous and ample measure of
enfranchisement long before Parliament met, we
accept with satisfaction a result which corresponds
with our recommendations. Whether the Govern-
ment as a body are perfectly satisfied with their own
handiwork may perhaps be doubtful, and it is cer-
tain that a considerable section of their supporters
regard with dislike the measure they have helped to
bring to a successful issue. These are the men who
believed in securities " as securities," who thought
it possible to maintain the condition of two years'
residence, and looked upon compound householding
as a Heaven-sent boon to keep men from the fran-
chise rather than " the device of Old Nick" stigma-
tised by Mr. Henley. It is to be regretted in the
interests of good govermient that any section of the
Legislature should have deceived themselves as to
the possibility of maintaining securities which were
clearly untenable ; but as we never shared their
false confidence, we cannot affect to sympathise
with their recent dismay. We insisted upon the
impossibility of laying down different terms of re-
sidence as the conditions of enfranchisement of
different classes of voters ; and, having always be-
lieved the effect of the practice of composition upon
the franchise to be excessively exaggerated on both
sides, we hailed the amendment of Mr. Hodgkin-
son, which gave the privilege of the vote to every
householder who pays the rates free from the diffi-
culty of compounding. Our only regret is that the
enfranchising clauses have not been supplemented
by a scheme of redistribution equally comprehen-
sive. The evil effects of the new franchise, so far
as any may be anticipated, would have been re-
moved by an adequate redistribution of seats. It
is in small boroughs that household suffrage may
prove a source of corruption, and small boroughs
retain privileges abated in some cases, but still in
all wholly disproportionate to their real preten-
sions. The leaders of the great parties have failed
to show any mastery of the question of redistribu-
tion, and we must be content with a scheme which
removes the worst anomalies until public opinion on
the constitution of the House of Commons of the
future has been slowly matured.
:y, I •

FATTENING HORSES FOR FOOD.—At an exhibi-
tion of meat recently hold al Nancy a butcher exposed a
mare 27 months old, weighing 410 kilos., and a horse, 13
years old weighing 520 kilos. ; these animals had been
fattened for the table, and were covered with garlands.
The members of the Acclimatisation Society awarded
butcher Ponneaud a silver medal, and 50f. in money. Be-
fore being taken to the shambles the victims were led
through the town.