The Sun.
London, England, 1858-05-28 00:00:00

A* 1I t Is, 00.
-•

LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 28, 1858.

The confusion in King AGRAMANT'S camp was
nothing to the consternation excited in the Pal-
merstonian ranks by the brilliant address of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. The home truths
revealed by the Right Hon. Gentleman have ex-
cited the minds of his factious opponents to the
fiercest wrath. They wince under the energetic
application of the scourge, which he wielded with
such unsparing severity. There are howls
of every character, from the thorough bass (or
hose) to the shrill squeak of a penny whistle
—a bad imitation of the peripatetic Punch,
who, wanting the wit of the Prototype, are con-
tented if they make it up in noise and clamour.
Mr. DISRAELI has stripped the lacquer off the
native brass. Like St. PATRICK, in the Hiber-
nian atyth, he has crushed the venomous reptiles,
and their "pharisaical" patrons who gave, or
seemed to give, implicit credence to " the leading
articles written by themselves."
The description of the Friday evening in the
House of Commons was inimitable, when " the
wail of distress " not from the Ministerial
-
benches—was heard around. There was a cool
plete revolution. A mutiny only to be compared
to that of " the Bengal Army. Regiment after
regiment, corps after corps, general after general,
all acknowledged that they could not march
through Coventry. It was like a convulsion of
nature rather than any ordinary transaction of
human life. It only could be likened to one of those
earthquakes which take place in Calabria or Peru.
There was a rumbling murmur, a groan, a shriek,
a sound of distant thunder. No one knew
whether it came from the top or the bottom of
the house. There was a rant—a fissure iu the
ground—and then a village disappeared, then a
lan tower toppled down, and the whole of the
Opposition benches became one great dissolving
view of anarchy."

Welt might the Right Honourable Gentleman
the
exclaim, "are theseieople whom you wanti#ne
whom h whose camp
to govern the country ? People)
there is anarchy, betweenre is discord
on every point, and who are not even incited
the common bond of wishing to seize on the ap°il3
by
of office." They are not. The so-called i‘i-,,1
pondent "'dowse° nian Liberals," altho igh they
do nob like the DEBBY Government, do not seo
their way to any benefit, either for themselves or
the nation, in the return to office of the veteran

Another ingenious plan for the batter drainage
of the metropolis has been submitted to the con-
sideration of the metropolitan commissioners. As if
there were not enough plans already to bewilder
any ordinary board, and to render as dubious as
possible the chance of any speedy attempt at one
comprehensive improvement. Engineer after
engineer has proffered his suggestions under this
head, and up to the present moment nothing at
all definitely has ever yet come of it. The
Metropolitan Board of Works has been particu-
larly hasty in the matter. The General Board
of Health has taken it into its serious consider*.
tion. The Deodorisation Commission has not
been by any means idle. Reports have been
drawn up and published periodically. Statistics
have been sedulously accumulated. Sir Brm-
J'AIIIN HALL has scrutinized the problem from
every imaginable point of view, in the hope of at
last arriving at some satisfactory solution. Lord
JOHN MANNERS has endeavoured, is still endea-
vouring to emulate the industry, and to surpass
the sagacity of his energetic and indefatigable pre-
decessor. Dr. LETREBY has " many a time and
oft." insisted upon the necessity for some resolute
and instant reform in this direction being forth-
with undertaken by Her MAJESTY'S Government.
Dr. SOUTHWOOD SMITH has lent the aid of his
great authority towards the improvement of this
all but universal and overwhelming couvietion.
Mr. EDWIN CHADWICK has sustained with his
great authority the same powerful and convincing
argument. From Gwydyr House, from Guild-
hall, from Whitehall place, there have been per-
petually pouring in additional facts demonstrative
more and more clearly of the sore need there is
of some determined effort being made towards the
purification of London and Westminster. Mean-
while—so much having been spcken, written, v.nd
printed upon the subject—what bas been actually
done Surely nobody needs to be told that after
all these years, after all the hubbub in the way
of argument and consultation, what has actually
been done amounts just exactly to—Nothing.
Not only nothing has been Done, however, but
absolutely nothing all this while, up to the pre-
sent moment, has even been Attempted to be
done ! There have been plans in abundance, but
not one of these plans has ever once been frankly
and boldly taken in hand. And now—after all
the time and the toil thus wasted—forth comes
a bran new plan for the better drainage of the
metropolis—to what end ! of what precise cha-
racter ! Now, mark ! The last new plan in re-
ference to the main drainage question, the plan
now formally submitted to the consideration of
the Metropolitan Commissioners affects not in any
way to purify the Thames, and beyond that goes
the length of explicitly proposing that the sewage
shall be discharged within the metropolitan area.
So that literally the short and the long of it is—
that before this new Government plan could
by any possibility be accepted and acted
upon, a new act would have to be framed
and passed through both houses of Parlia.
went. For so long as the Metropolis Loeal
Management Act continues in existence in its pre-
sent form it would be a direct infringement of
that particular act of the Imperial Legislature,
; either to discharge the sewage within the metro-
I politan area or not to see to the purification of the
river Thames. And, what is more, we don't think
it at all within the bounds of mere probability that
the Lords and Commons can be induced nowa-
days to alter by a hair's breadth, the terms of that
special enacttnent. It is obviously, therefore,
sheer waste of time for the Commissioners to be
pottering over the impracticable suggestions of
an illegal plan like the one just now ssgely sut,_
mitted to their consideration. Let us hope that
the last of these abortive plans may, without
any further delay, be strangled betimes with its
own swathing bands of red tape, and buried away
decen.ly in the cerements of circumlocution.

Several journals have announced that the Cairnaeati
of Moldavia, Pines Vogoride9, was at the point of death.
A telegram from Jassy, dated May 24, contradicts this
news. .

COPYRIGHT IN WORKS OF FINE ART.—A Petition to
the Reuse of Lords, praying, an amendment of the law
of artistic copyright, already signed by Sir Charles East-
lake, P.R.A., is now and will be lying at the house of
the Socety of Arts in the Adelphi for the next few cloys.
All persons interested in the subject should lose ❑o time
in sluing it.