The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

TIMES.-Mr. Bright has many merits as an orator,
but among them versatility has not hitherto been
included. We have had ourselves sometimes to
complain of an undue tendency to repetition, and of
a monotony of abuse, which has become wearisome.
Ju6t now, however, he has introduced himself to us
in a totally fresh aspect, and in his last suggestive
review of all that has been done and all that has
been left undone on the field of politics, we congra-
tulate him on having so successfully proved that
his oratorical guns can traverse, and are not built
up in the wall, as the Turkish ordnance used to be
before Western Europe gave the Ottomans a lesson
in the art of destruction. Mr. Bright comes before
us now in a new and most alluring attitude, as a good,
easy man, of strong convictions, of inoffensive habits
and susceptible feelings, one who has fallen on evil
tongues and evil days, and winces tremulously
under the pressure of libels and calumnies which
he wants alike the spirit, the power, and the will to
retort. The pleasing office has been reserved for his
fellow-townsmen of Rochdale to bind up this bruised
reed and pour balm into this deeply wounded spirit.
Mr. Bright says, " I have asked myself how it
happens that that is done in political life which is
not done in any other kind of life. A man may
be very active in other fields of controversy, but
no one, however much opposed to him, would
think of pursuing him with that rancorous spirit
which, unfortunately, is introduced into political
controversy, and which has pursued me with an
unrelenting animosity, not for months only, but
for years past." He looks back upon his past life,
and finds that his course has been straightforward.
In legal matters he has been in favour of
justice ; in political in favour of high morality;
but he has united himself with neither political
party, and so it is deplorable to think that he
Ihas become a target for both. Ile is " a member of
a small but somewhat remarkable religious sect, in
which personal ambition is practically unknown,"
and which, as typical of its extreme nt2eknes and
mildness, invests all its members with the alluring
name of "friend." Nor is this all; " he feels for the
millions a sympathy which he has not been able to
express in words, and for which he can find no proper
exhibition of outward conduct which he can manifest
towards them ;" and yet this single-hearted, this
amiable being is the object of unceasing calumny,
under which nothing could support him, under the
weight of which he must retire from public life,were
it not for the sympathy of his fellow-townsmen. In
one part of Mr. Bright's complaint, thus pathetically
heard, we must entirely agree with him. Nothing
can be more unfair, nothing more unhandsome, no-
thing more unjust, than the private attacks of which
Mr. Bright has been the object. The public has
nothing to do with the manner in which he conducts
his business, nothing to do with his relations with
his workmen, nothing to do with stories which may
be collected from rivals in trade at a distance or hos-
tile neighbours on the spot. It is only as a political
character that we have to deal with Mr. Bright, and
that certainly with sufficient material, without in-
truding ourselves into his busiuess or social relations;

but when Mr. Bright asks why it is that political
controversies are carried on with a bitterness known

to no other disputes, it is difficult to answer with
the gravity which such a question maydemand. Has
it never occurred to him that there is no man in
England who has laboured so long and so success-
fully to embitter and envenom political controversies
as himself—who has set so evil an example, and one
so fruitful of mischief ? Few can imitate Mr.

Bright's eloquence, but every paltry spouter at a
provincial dinner can copy with the utmost case the

virulence of his invective and the violence of his

personal denunciation. In this very speech he im-
putes by implication dishonesty to the whole Press
which ventures to disagree with him ; and, if we
except O'Connell and Cobbett, we doubt whether a

choicer garland of abuse against parties and persons
could be gathered from the speeches of any other
public man of the present century than from those
of Mr. Bright. It is not without a certain feeling
of pleasure, therefore, that we observe how keenly
the man who has set this example to our public
speakers seems to feel that very castigation of
which he is so lavish to others. Attacks which

any other man of his calibre would treat with con-

tem- ptuous silence appear to drive him quite beyond
his patience. In respect of habitual vituperation he
is the more inexcusable, because he derives no coun-
tenance from the practice of our other public men.
There never was a time when, strong as our political
differences, personal courtesy in this respect was
more studiously preserved by men making any pre-
tence to the character of statesmen. Mr. Bright,
finding himself assailed by public writers and
speakers, feels justified by a spirit of charity in con-
cluding, without a particle of evidence, that " an
order had gone forth from head-quarters to the
miserable writers and speakers of that miserable and
bateful faction to abuse him." Has it never occurred

to him that there is no occasion to assume the exis-

tence of an original conspiracy against him, while
he is so studious to excite every element of hostility
by his own unceasing provocation ? It is not for
having had his share, with many others, in the
triumphs of Free Trade, nor yet for the repeal of
the Paper Duty, that Mr. Bright has drawn upon

himself the comments of which he complains. His
absurd plan of dividing India into six independent
Presidencies, which would have rendered defence in

case of invasion impossible and laid the foundation
of eternal discord in case of our departure, might
have been left in oblivion if he had not been foolish

enough to revive it. We do not wish, unless he com-
pels us, to recur to his universally-condemned propo-
sitions with regard to the purchase by Government,
and re-distribution among needy tenants, of the

best managed estates in Ireland ; nor shall'we fight
again the battle for the right of the owner of the
land to deal with it as he pleases, without the

pressure of legal compulsion. We are not concerned
to attack Mr. Bright's political career further than.
to observe that it may be divided into two parts_
those things for which he and his coadjutors have
been able to make a good case, and those for
which they have not. The first he has succeeded
in carrying ; the second, he has not carried, and,
we trust, he is not likely to carry. His opinion
is, that from the Revolution of 1688 down to the
Reform Bill, a dreary period of 140 years, will you
look in vain for any wise or good legislation in the
House of Commons. Since the Repeal of the Corn
Laws nothing bas been done, and nothing can be
done, fur good. With such sentments we are not
surprised that Mr. Bright thinks it would be good
for us that the millions of our countrymen should
now seize the sceptre, or that he should think that
Parliament is powerless for good, simply because it
is unwilling to reverse the policy and overthrow the
institutions of our ancestors. To all this we are
accustomed, but we are surprised that a person
who holds these opinions, and habitually employs
this language, should think it possible to defend
himself against the charge of anti-national feelings,
and of a disregard to the true interests and the real
and valuable institutions of the nation ; and that
the man who makes it his business to decry institu-
tions of which we are justly proud, to pervert the
facts of history, and praise other countries at our
expense,
should suppose that he can do these things
without raising up some faint echo of his own spirit
of bitterness. There is nothing too good to be be-
lieved of other nations, nothing too bad to be
asserted of England. We condole with Mr.
Bright for having found, like other persecutors,
persons almost as zealous and as bitter as himself,
and we exhort him to improve the pain he now
feels by drawing
from it the resuluLiou to teat
others a little more as he himself would like to be
treated. •

POST.--There is a fashion in warlike armaments
as there is in everything else, and nations possibly
think, and perhaps with better show of reason than
individuals, that to be in this respect out of the
fashion is equivalent to being out of the world. In
regard to dress it is only necessary for some grande
dame, whose right to innovate is acknowledged, to
make some startling alteration in the style of some
portion of her apparel, in order to find numerous
imitators ; and in like manner if in war a State
employs some particular engine whose powers are
more than ordinarily destructive, or adopt tactics
which are pre-eminently successful, straightway
all other states hasten to use the same engine, or
establish the same system. During the past few
years the occasions have been by no means few on
which, the fashion having been set by some innova-
tion in military or naval armaments, it was speedily
adopted by the members of the great family of
nations. During the interval which elapsed between
the war in Italy in 1859 and the secession of the
Southern States of the American Union, it became
the fashion to substitute iron-clad frigates for
wooden ships of the line, and in theory it came to
be aicepted that a wooden vessel could not success-
fully contend with one whose sides were covered
with armour. France and England were the first
to act in accordance with the new code; but as
the adoption of the new fashion involved a great
deal of expense, and as it was by no means certain
that the mode would not again speedily change, few
other States followed their example. Shortly after
the commencement of the American civil war an
event, however, happened which established the
supremacy of the new style of naval architecture,
and completely dissipated the doubts of those \r• ho
hesitated about adopting it. Au engagement took
place in Hampton Roads between the Merrimac, a
very homely and uncouth specimen of an iron-clad,
and some wooden ships of war which lay at anchor
under the guns of some well-manned forts. The
Merrimac in a very brief space of time sank
the wooden vessels, and withdrew from under
the fire of the forts without having sustained any ,
substantial injury. From this naval engagement'
the European Powers conceived that they had
learned a useful lesson, and drew two practical con-
clusions—first, that wooden vessels are virtually use-
less when contending with iron-clads; and, second,
that fortifications are practically powerless against
vessels whose sides are covered with armour five
inches thick. Acting on these views, France and
England speedily increased the number of their
iron-clads from two to about thirty, whilst every.
Power with the smallest pretensions to be con-
sidered maritime proceeded either to lay down
the keels of one or more of the new species
of war vessel, or cast about for the means of trim-
ming their wooden vessels in conformity with the
orthodox fashion. On the other hand, the theory
that stone fortifications were of any service for the
defence of 'seaports was universally regarded as
exploded, and England, which had just commenced
the construction of an elaborate system of fortifi-
cations for the protection of her naval arsenals,
forthwith desisted from an undertaking which every
one unanimously condemned. So matters remained,
with comparatively little modification, till the close
of the American war. The failure of the Federal
iron-clads to force an entrance in Charleston Har-
bour to some extent restored the pre-existing faith
in stone walls and heavy artillery ; but the confi-
dence in armour-plated vessels for all operations
against wooden ships remained unshaken. Artil-
lerists set themselves about the construction of guns
which would pierce armour-plating, and, having
succeeded, naval engineers in their turn substituted
for the plating then in use other which proved to be
impenetrable by the newly constructed cannon. It
was admitted on all hands however, that a navy
could not be said to exist if it did not consist of
ironclads ; and, although the cost of each vessel ex-
ceeded a quarter of a million sterling, the several
maritime Powers hastened, even at this cost, to
construct vessels which they at all events flattered
themselves would under all circumstances be more
than a match for any ships not armed like them-
selves. Such was the position of affairs when war
broke out in the course of last summer between the
allied Powers of Prussia and Italy and Austria.
Prussia employed no naval force, but Italy eagerly
sought an occasion of bringing into active service
against the common enemy a fleet, including several
ironclads, which at an immense cost she had been
at the pains to create during the past few years.
The much wished-for opportunity presented itself,
and at Lissa, to the great astonishment of the
world, an Austrian fleet, composed almost exclu-
sively of wooden vessels, defeated the Italian
squadron with great loss—the Re d'ltalia, one of
the most powerful of the iron-clads, being actually
sent to the bottom. So much for the principal
events connected with naval architecture and its
changing fashions within the past half-dozen years.
But it is not alone in naval armaments that nations
have recently deemed it expedient to introduce im-
portant and costly modifications. Just as the ex-
ploits of the Merrimac in Hampton Roads cm.-
vinced maritime Powers that their fleets were
useless, in like manner the successful campaign of
the Prussians in Bohemia last summer satisfied

military Powers that the organisation of their armies
was faulty, and the weapons of their forces almost
harmless. Not that fashions have not been chang-
ing of late in fire-arms. The flint musket—to speak
of things within the memories of all—gave way to
that furnished with tae percussion hammer, and a
few years later the smooth bore was replaced by
the rifle. But now the rifle, perfect instrument
though it seems, must be thrown aside because it
cannot be loaded sufficiently rapidly. The time
occupied in ramming the charge down from the
muzzle is too great, and the more expeditious mode
of loading from the breech must be adopted instead
of the ancient method. And accordingly, before
the details of the brief war which terminated at
Sadowa were well known to the majcrity of the
reading world, all the military powers in Europe
had begun to convert their costly muzzle-loading
rifles into breech-loaders ; and at the present mo-
ment, as every one well knows, they continue to
prosecute that task. But the successes of Prussia
also induced a very general distrust in the existing
systems of military organisation. And so it hap-
pens that throughout Europe one hears of scarc,ly
anything now but the reorganisation of the armies.
France, believed to be the first military Power in
Europe, and possessed of au army both nurnerou s
and efficient, deems it necessary to reorganise
her forces and increase their strength. Austria,
Spain, Italy, and even peaceable England, follotv
suit, and each one vies with the other in anxiety to
reorganise and to equip after the latest and most
approved fashion—" Quicquid delirant reges, plec-
tuntur Achivi." We fear it is a story without a
moral. The madness is universal, and, if only for
the sake of keeping well with our fellow lunatics,
we must join in their mania. The reflection is
nevertheless a bitter one, that the commerce of na-
tions must suffer, their industrial energies be checked,
and the hard-earned gains of the mechanic and the
labourer be diminished for the sake of maintaining
the position which becomes a military or maritime
Power a la mode.

The death is announced from Chalons-sur-Saone
of Vol. Andre Marechal, protably the oldest military offi-
cer in Europe. He was born in 1764, entered the army as
a volunteer iu 1781, served through all the revolutionary
wars and those of Napoleon, and was made a colonel in
1812. He had received six wounds.

FIRE-DAMP.—M. De Fonvielle devotes an article
in the Cosmos to the various methods hitherto devised for
averting the danger arising from fire-damp in mines. After
mentioning Lord Kinnaird's suggestion of a mechanical
apparatus for warning off the miners when the presence
of the insidious gas has been ascertained, the author of
the article proceeds to notice Mr. Graham's important dis-
covery, viz., that diaphragms of animal matter, such as
bladders, possess the property of absorrbing by endosmosis
a portion of the carburetted hydrogen contained in the air. •
This discovery affords a very valuable means of ascertain-
ing the existence of fire-damp at different points of
mine; a bladder filled with common air and hung up in
the suspected place will expand by the absorption of the
carburet, and the mount of the expansion may be ascer-
tained by an ingenius contrivance of Mr. Aurell's, con-
sisting in a lever which, on receiving the pressure of the
swelling bladder, sets in motion an electrical bell, which
gives the alarm. The miners may thus leave the mine in
time, and not return to it till it is well ventilated. Ex-
perienced miners, on the contrary, affirm that they
become aware of the approach of fire damp without the
assistance of any apparatus, by the mere appearance of the
flame in the safety lamp; and they believe that with proper
precautions they• might use the common open lamp, in
their opinion the best indicator of the existence of fire-
damp. Perhaps it is ; but then let those experienced miners
explain how it happens that explosions are so frequent ?
The open lamp has been repeatedly tested by the impru-
dence of miners themselves, who, unable to bear the
tortime of a dim light In a dark place, have but too often
occasioned catastrophes by opening their lamps. M. do
Fonvielle concludes with recommending the use of Biwa.'
korff's apparatus of induction for the illumination of the
galleries, by which means all danger of an explosion might
be altogether avoided.—Galignani.