The Sun.
London, England, 1858-10-04 00:00:00

But, if the nation show that more electoral power
it will have—if the Whigs and Tories both see that
the concession cannot be avoided—then most cer-
tainly we shall have the two parties bidding for
office through concessions to the public. A few of
the more determined Tories might quit the present
Cabinet, and there might be additions from unex-
pected quarters, or there might be equally unex-
pected conversions, but a DERBY Mintstry might
still carry a People's Reform Bill. As to old doings
of the Tories, why, they are done and over, and few
of the Whigs could use them as stones to pelt with
without being pelted in like manner in return.
Has not Mr. HENLEY told us that " Conservative"
is now an antiquated name ? and has he not done
his best to name his party " The Progressives ?" To
be sure he tried his hand at definition, but when
even he felt it expedient to claim the word, he must
have known that definitions are but the weakest of
political cobwebs ; the slightest urgency will
hurt them. The truth is, any party, to be in
office, must take up with the nation's policy. It
is absurd to speak of a stable Govern-
ment as having any other ; and if the nation
does but indicate its policy unmistakeably
Lord DERBY and his colleagues will not make the
political mistake of leaving to the Whigs the popu-
larity of carrying out that policy, and also the long
lease of office consequent on having done so.

We hope it will not be found difficult for the
leading reformers in every part of the country to
settle the main points of their programme. They
have not a party object but a national one.
They should band together to serve neither Whigs
*or Tories, neither Liberals nor Conservatives.
Their object is simply' to give the people of the
United Kingdom the power of fairly and truthfully
representing their opinions in the House of Com-
mons. One man in seven is not the people of Eng-
land—that must be set right first. That one man's
vote in one place should be able to neutralise eighty
men's votes in another is not fair representatiour-
that account must be , next made square. That
any man should vote under the fear of what his
landlord, or banker, or lawyer, or creditor, or cus-
tomer, or patron, or master, or even of what his
friend will say or do to him, is not allowing that
man to be represented—the Ballot-box must make
the voters independent. On these points all re-
formers, if they discuss matters, are sure to agree ;
let them at once meet, discuss, agree, act, memo-
rialise, and petition, and " they'll not fail," no, not
with even the Lords, the Whigs, the Tories, the
POPE himself, and the almighty Times too, against
them.

• A pictorial abomination of a very different and
of a far more pernicious character has followed
immediately upon the weeping away of the literary
garbage of Holywell-street. Cannot Lord CAMP-
BELL early in the next session of Parliament revise
that wholesome and beneficent enactment of his
which has already done so much good ? We would
put it to the noble and learned Lord as earnestly
as possible for unless something of this kind
can be done, and that speedily, a worse abomina-
tion—an abomination immeasurably worse • than
that of which Lord CAMPBELL'S Act so very
recently relieved the metropolis, will have grown
into very hideous proportions. It blazons itself
forth already in the shop windows, not in obscure
byeways like Holywell-street, but in some of our
most crowded thoroughfares. It is a villany not
requiring to be ferreted out, but glaring upon us
vividly as we jostle each other upon the thronged
pavements. It is asvillanous an evil, in its way, as
though those frightful Penny Gaffs, described by Mr.
HENRY MAYHEW, in his " London Labour and the
London Poor, " were displayed gratuitously for
every passer-by. Our contemporary the Morning
Post but very lately drew attention to this new
and most lamentable scandal, urging upon the
authorities the necessity for its instant suppression,
and its thorough extirpation. And the nature of
this scandal ? It is nothing less than the
wholesale display of licentious photographs, taken
from nature and formed into stereoscopic slides.
Enough if the mere fact is here alluded to—the fact
of these detestable productions being conspicuously
placed in many of the London shop windows. If
Lord CAMPBELL'S Act, as it is, does not already em-
power the police to interfere here, in GoD's name
let it be carefully revised next session, so that the
strong grasp of the law may at once strangle this
new iniquity, and make a clean sweep of this more
flagrant outrage upon public decency than any
the noble and learned author of the bill contem-
plated would require removal from the borders of
our great thbroaghfares.