The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-26 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 26, 1867.

CONGRESS.

SENATE.

Congress closed its extra Session and commenced
its regular winter Session at noon on the 2d Decem-
ber. The Joint Committee waited on the President,
according to custom, at one o'clock, to inform him
that both Houses had organised. The President's
Message was received on the following day, with
the Department Reports, giving a detailed view of
the operations for the past year, and the sugges-
tions for the future.

The Senate has abolished the prefix of Hon-
ourable to the names of its members, passed a
bill making five judges of the Supreme Court
a quorum, and a resolution instructing the Fi-
nance Committee to inquire into the expediency
of reporting a bill authorising the Secretary of the
Treasury to contract for the redempticu of the
5-20's forty-year loan on bonds bearing 5 per cent
interest, both principal and interest payable in gold ;
the Government to have the option to redeem them

after twenty years.
On the debate on the President's Message, Mr.

Howard objected to its being printed ; ➢lr. Sumner
agreed with him in considering it a libel upon
Congress, an incendiary. document calculated to
stimulate rebellion and to provoke civil war, as well
as evidence of a coalition between the President
and the rebels, proving Andrew Johnson to be the
successor of Jefferson Davis. Mr. Cameron, of
Pennsylvania, for economical reasons, thought it
ought not to be printed. Mr. Anthony, of Rhode
Island, said that if Congress printed nothing it did
not approve there would be great economy. Sena-
tor Drake, of Missouri, introduced a resolution
censuring the President for those portions of his
Message in which he condemned the course of Con-
gress, recommending Congress to express reprehen-
sion. The President was defended by Mr. Bucka-
law, of Pennsylvania, who considers the Recon-
struction Acts unconstitutional, and advised their
repeal ; also of Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut, who
declared Mr. Sumner guilty of libel in calling the
President a traitor. Mr. Wilson, although con-
demning the doctrines and temper of the Message,
would not depart from the usual practice of printing
it. If Congress had exceeded its constitutional

limits in Reconstruction, the President had set the
example in his plan, and he closed his speech by
asserting that the policy will in a few mouths be an
accomplished fact, and that the Legislature would
stand like a rock on its Reconstruction Acts, and
Lot retr,at an inch. Judge Thomas has taken his
seat as Senator from Maryland.
The correspondence between Mr. Seward and the

late Minister to Austria, Mr. Motley, which ended iu
the latter gentleman's resignation, has been laid before
the Senate in answer to its call. Last April Mr.
Motley was somewhat peremptorily instructed to
resign the mission. The letter announcing the
withdrawal was laid before the Emperor on the 14th
June. His Majesty expressed great regret at the
departure from his capital of a representative who,
during a most trying period, had maintained the
most friendly relations with his Government, and
be requested Mr. Motley to convey an intimation of
his gratitude for the intercession of the Washington
Government on behalf of his brother Maximilian.

Mr. Motley writes bitterly in his last letter to his
official superior. lie accuses Mr. Seward of arraign-
ing him officially and peremptorily, on charges sup-
plied by an unknown informer ; and having failed

in receiving a reply to his denunciation of those
charges as false, calumnious, and contemptible, he
thought it proper to place on the records of the Le-

gation and of the State Department the fact that
the author was absolutely unknown to him—that

he believed he had never seen him nor heard his voice
—and that he (Mr. Motley) had never heard

APCracken's name until the publication of his
letter. lie closes the despatch by reiterating that
the charges are false and vile.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

The House repealed the cotton tax, to come into
force after the collection is made on the present
crop. The Committee of Ways and Means re-
ported a bill stopping further contraction of the
currency, which was agreed to. Four members
from Kentucky have been admitted, and three
others will he. Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, in-
troduced a bill to establish free schools in the dis-
trict of Co:umbia, which was referred, and will
pass, and he offered a resolution for dividing Texas
into two or more States, which was rejected. The
delegate from Nebraska petitioned to allow territo-
rial delegates to vote. Mr. Cullum, of Illincis,
supported a resolution declaring that no claim of a
foreign Government over naturalised citizens of the
United States shall affect the right of such citizens
to Federal protection, and that the Government
shall at all lazards protect naturalised citizens both
at home and abroad.

The Foreign Committee decided that those
Fenians who go to Ireland to stir up a civil war will
do so at their own risk, and that the Government
has no ground for interfering to save them from the
consequences of their folly. It is thought, how-
ever, that action will be taken to protect naturalised
citizens from claims made upon them for allegiance
and service to their former Governments. A reso-
lution was also offered limiting the assessment of
the internal revenue to $300,000,000 mutually. Mr.
Schenck, of Ohio, proposed a resolution to renew
the contract with Mr. Penny, a coloured man who
keeps the House restaurant, at $2OO per annum,
and that he be allowed to sell beer and malt liquors.
Speaker Colfax said the last part of the resolution
—the beer and malt liquor—was not in order, being
in violation of a joint rule. Mr. Elredge, of Wis-
consin, Democrat, suggested that, in view of the
late action of Massachusetts, the rule should be
modified. The resolution was referred to the Com-
mittee on Rules. Senator Wilson must keep an eye
open, or tippling will get within the walls of the
Capitol again.
The House considered the reports on the subject
of impeachment brought forward by Mr. Boutwell,
of Massachusetts. In an able and temperate speech
he reviewed the provisions of the Constitution bear-
ing on impeachment, which were-Ist, the article
giving the House of Representatives the sole
power of impeachment ; 2d, that which gives the
Senate sole power to try ; 3, that which provides
that judgment shall not extend further than to the
removal from office of the party convicted.
The Speaker laid before the House the following
communication, signed by nearly all the corres-
pondents of the press at Washington

Washington, Dec. 4, 1867.
Hon. Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Repre-

sentatives.

Sir, —As the publication of the President's message in
many of the papers of the country, in advance of its presen-
tation to Congress, has been made the subject of comment
and discussion in the House, and as it is regarded as dis-
respectful both to Congress and the President, we, the
undersigned, special correspondents resident in Washing-
ton, respectfully aak that the matter be referred to some
appropriate standing committee for investigation, in order
that the responsibility, if any breach of good faith, be
fixed, and that it may likewise be known who acted from
mercenary motives which are charged as being the cause
of such alleged violation of honour and good faith.

We have the honour, &c.

Mr. Wilson, of lowa, said the communication was
respectful in tone, and it had better be referred to
a committee, and it was accordingly referred to that
on the Judiciary.

SHIPS.—The Herald sailed from Shields
on the 16th of March for Hongkong, and has not since
been heard of. The Enoch Bonier sailed from Liverpool
o❑ the 22d of August, for Boston. She was off the Smalls
on the 27th, and has not since been heard cf.
"Gentlemen,—Allow me unsolicited to lend you a word
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within my knowledge. We keep it as our chief family
medicine, and find its use in ordinary cases worth more
than any doctor. Many clergymen have spoken of it in
the highest terms as a family medicine. Missionaries in
repeated instances have said to me in person and in their
letters that the Pain Killer was by far the best medicine
used in heathen lands. This I say in justice to yourselves,
and for the benefit of others.—Yours, &c., Rev. W. B.
JACOBS, late editor of the Christian Chronicle. To Perry
Davis and Son, 17, Southampton-row, Holborn (W. C.)"

None genuine without their trade mark, PAIN KILLER,
on tho Govor=eut stamp. Sold by otituasts genorally.—

(ADYT.)

WHO WAS ME ART-ARCHITECT OF THE
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT?

(From the Westminster Gazette.)
Mr. E. Welby Pugin has done wisely in sub-
mitting this inquiry to the decision of the public.

He had reason to anticipate that Englishmen would
not be indifferent to the double question of his
father's renown and the art history of a great

national monument. They are accustomed to debate

eagerly matters of less interest, and they generally
contrive in spite of their proverbial slowness, to
arrive at a just verdict. They are not likely to

miss it in this case. Mr. Pugin has communicated

to the jury to which he appeals all the materials at
his disposal. If they are less complete than they

might have been, this is not his fault. Ile would
have gladly published more, if his adversaries had

been as honest as himself. But he has given us
enough, and it will not be difficult, even with
evidence purposely obscured, to determine the
question proposed by him, " Who was the Art-

Architect of the Houses of Parliament ?" The

'amily of the late Sir Charles Barry have attempted
,o claim this honour for their relative, by carefully

suppressing the very documents which would have
sufficed to prove, as the public will justly infer
from so unusual a proceeding, that he had no title
to it. We shall have something to say presently
about this singular manoeuvre ; but before dis-
cussing the documentary evidence, or the imprudent
artifice which has veiled so large a portion of it
from the public eye, we must notice certain pre-
liminary considerations which, if we are not
mistaken, go far to decide the whole question,
without any evidence whatsoever.
(1.) We observe, then, in the first place, that no
capable and impartial judge has the slightest doubt
on these two capital points—that the late Mr.
Pugin was, and the late Sir Charles Barry was not,
competent to be the art-architect of the Houses
of Parliament. No living artist, whether painter
or architect, will question the first proposition. Mr.
Pugin's works speak for themselves. It was pre-
cisely in such details as those which constitute
the decorative features, both interior and exterior,
of the Westminster Palace, and save it from the
monotony from which it has barely escaped, that
'Mr. Pugin was so great a master. It was here that
his genius was especially manifested, though it
displayed itself equally, wherever the material
conditions were favourable, in general conception
and design. There are many living eye-witnesses
of the prodigious facility with which that great
artist threw off the original sketches of those ex-
quisite details in which he was probably unrivalled,
either in England or elsewhere. And this is not
all. His son notices, and there is perhaps no
argument in his pamphlet which carries with it
greater weight, that he has actually in his own
possession, " several volumes of his original com-
positions, exquisitely etched by himself in 1833,
which confirm the probability "—he might have
ventured to employ a more emphatic phrase—
" that the same mind which conceived them con-
ceived also the Houses of Parliament. In many
of them the features and details are actual proto-
types or facsimiles of those of Westminster. One
of them is literally the Victoria Tower, a second the
Clock Tower in embryo. In others, are entire
façades, court-yards, &c., identical with parts of the
Houses of Parliament." (Pp. 3,4.) Without
claimng judicial perspicuity, or anything beyond
a knowledge of the elementary principles of
evidence, we may easily appreciate the gravity of
this decisive fact. No one will deny, nor tolerate
the denial by others, that whether Mr. Pugin
designed the artistic details of the Houses of
Parliament or not, he was at all events qualified
to de it.

On the other hand, Sir Charles Barry, who
hardly professed to know anything but classical
architecture, in which he displayedgreat ability, was
notoriously incapable, as his abortive attempts in
another field abundantlyprove, of accomplishingthe
work which his family unwisely attribute to him.
An impartial writer in the Building News of Sept.
20, 1867, after doing ample justice to Barry as
a classical architect, observes, " I was certainly
struck by the plain question : " What, on the
other hand, has Sir Charles got to show ?" And
then, he continues as follows :—" When I\lr. Pugin
instances St. Peter's Church, Ilatton Garden, and
asks if it be possible that the same man could have
designed the Palace of Westminster, he puts a
question very much to the point, and one which
can be answered by any one who takes the trouble

to inspect the said church. It was consecrated in
October, 1832. The style is perpendicular, of

the worst kind, exhibiting all the faults that an
utter absence of Gothic feeling could crowd into
one building." Such was Barry's success in Gothic
architecture, while Pugin had already completed
the design of the future Victoria Tower ! But the
same witness has more to tell us. In utter disgust
I entered the church, in hopes that the interior
might present some redeeming feature. In this I
was disappointed. The very form of the arches
of the nave, and the pillars supporting them, is
of the most debased character ; and, as to the
woodwork, the roof, galleries, pulpit, reredos, pin-
nacles, crochets, and panelling, are of the rudest
and most ignorant description." We cannot be sur-
prised when this writer adds :—" I left the build-
ing satisfied that the man who, in 1830, or there-
abouts, designed this church, could by no possi-
bility have had anything advantageous to do with
the Palace of Westminster." Of another church
by Barry, which cost more than £ll,OOO, the same
competent critic says : " Criticism upon these
buildings is thrown away." Of two others, whose
united cost exceeded £22,000, so that the architect
was not hampered by want of means, he observes :
—" They can add to no architect's reputation."
he continues, " it were
" For his fame's sake,"
well if everything Gothic Sir Charles ever did,
could be hidden from sight." Finally, he sums up
his impartial observations with this unambiguous
verdict —" The same hand could not have designed
buildings of such opposite character as Barry's
churches and the Westminster Palace."
(2.) But if it is certain that Pugin was, and that
Barry was not, competent to execute the work,
which gives all their beauty to the Houses of Par-
liament, it is equally notorious, and this is the
second point to be noticed, that no one conversant
with the subject ever supposed that the latter was
the art-architect of the Westminster Palace, or
that he designed anything but the ground plan,
leaving the elevations and details to the genius of
Pugin. " This impression," as one of the witnesses
cited by his son observes, " was so generally ac-
cepted by every one who cared for such matters,
that it seemed almost a certainty, not requiring
investigation or proof." Another authority, Mr.
Chapman, co.ifirms from independent observation
this universal impression, " that Pugin, and not
Barry, furnished the designs for the Palace of
Westminster ;" while Mr. Voysey declares, after
referring to the unanimous conviction of the pro-
fession generally :—" I was never more surprised
in my life than when I read the other day in the
Times that the fact had been called in question."
" Such a tradition," exising among all classes of
professional men, as well as among all lovers of
art for whom the question had any interest, could
not, as Mr. E. W. Pugin reasonably argues, have
penetrated all minds, if it had not been based upon
well-known and undisputed facts.
(3.) The third preliminary consideration, which
takes precedence of all documentary evidence, and
goes far, as we have said, to render it superfluous,
is the suppression of the correspondence between
Pugin and Barry, and the manoeuvre by which this
suspicious act was accomplished by Barry and his
relatives. If any additional proof of the justice
of Pugin's claim, and of Barry's recognition of it,
were wanted, the almost incredible proceedings
of the latter have supplied it. As soon as the
great architect was dead, the first thought of the
man, who had profited so largely by his unrivalled
skill was- to destroy every trace of his relations
with him. His own confession was, that " he had
destroyed the whole of the correspondence," as
far as he had the power to do so ; and when he
learned the unwelcome fact that the work of de-
struction was incomplete, and that " a vast num-
ber" of his own letters to Pugin were still in exist-
ence, and could, therefore, be produced against

him, " his confusion and distress," we are told,
" were painful to witness." His first exclamation

proved his own knowledge of the testimony they
would bear—" Good Heavens!" he said, " I thought
Pugin destroyed all letters lie received." Barry had
good reason, then, to wish that those letters should
be kept from the public eye. Can any one doubt
what it was? Can any one doubt thatithey would
have proved who was the real art-architect of the

Houses of Parliament? For this reason it was

necessary that they should cease to exist. The
means were at hand. They were in possession
of a youth of eighteen, candid and unsuspicious,
whom it was easy to beguile for fair words. From
this youth, affecting a regard for his welfare and
for the interests of his family which his own acts
belied, Barry was not ashamed to obtain the letters
which he had inwardly resolved to suppress,
giving a "positive assurance that they should be
returned." That promise, after various excuses
and evasions, was deliberately violated, first by
Barry himself, and afterwards by his family. They

hold in their grasp, or have destroyed, a mass of

letters which would assist the public to decide a
question of great public interest, and they prefer
the dishonour of breaking a solemn pledge rather
than give them up. Such a proceeding is simply

suicidal. One can fancy the amusement and in-
dignation which would be excited in any of our law

courts if it should be discovered that one of the

parties to a suit had suppressed the principal
document by which its merits might be decided, I
after obtaining it from the other side 'With a so-
lemn promise of restoration. If Sir Charles Barry
had ever possessed the slightest claim to be consi-
dered the art-architect of the Westminster Palace,
his own conduct and that of his imprudent rela-
tives would have effectually destroyed it.
In presence of the facts at which we have now
glanced, it may seem superfluous to enter upon a
critical examination of the evidence upon which
Mr. E. W. Pugin founds his father's claim. That
evidence consists chiefly of extracts from his diaries,
and of such letters as the son has been able to
rescue from destruction. They abundantly con-
firm—and this is all we could fairly expect from
them—the truth which is antecedently demon-
strated without their aid. There is no need to
quote them in detail, even if our space would
allow us to do so. It will suffice to indicate their
general scope and tenor. The diaries show that,
during the whole of 1835, 1836, and 1837, Pugin
was incessantly engaged on the work for which
Barry was nominally responsible. What was he
doing? He was already the most eminent archi-
tect of his time, and though he might be willing,
from the passionate love of his art which distin-
guished him, to undertake all the artistic details
of a great national monument, he would have dis-
dained to accept any meaner employment in con-
nection with it. The diaries and letters show that,
in fact, he was occupied during a long series of
years as the sole art-architect of the Westminster
Palace. Barry's own letters, few as they are,
clearly recognize that he was dependent upon his
great ally for the execution of all the details, and
that he knew it. He was continually receiving from
the latter, during a series of years, not only "sec-
tional drawings," but "working drawings," and for
every kind of work, internal and external, " ele-
vations," " sets of exquisite details," and in such
profusion that, as Mr. E. W. Pugin observes, they
" make up the entire building," excepting only the
mere ground plan. Barry seems to have felt—and
the memory of his former failures in Gothic work
would account for the admission—that Pugin
alone could do for him what he was incapable of
doing himself, and that without Pugin's aid he
would have been, as he expressed it, " in a regular
fix." Nothing but imperious necessity could have
induced a man in his position to confess, by so
many unambiguous acts, his own incapacity, and
to invoke, what he called, Pugin's " 50-horse power
of creation " to save the Houses of Parliament
from the inevitable ruin which Pugin's genius
was alone able to avert.

The only plea which Barry's few partizans now
attempt to maintain is one, it must be distinctly
said, which reflects still deeper discredit upon their
proceedings. Pugin himself, they urge, did not
claim to be the art architect of the Houses of
Parliament ; and they quote a letter, written long
after he had actually completed a large part of the
designs, and of which we fortunately possess his
own explanation, to support their assertion. Now
it can be proved, by a multitude of witnesses, that
Pugin did claim, again and again, all that his son
claims for him. "He frequently stated to me (in
confidence)," says Mr. Thomas Grieve, " that he
was the designer of the Houses." He even, as many
of his friends can testify, was in the habit, in con-
fidential intercourse, of ridiculing Barry's real posi-

tion in connection with the work. "I remember
on one occasion," adds Mr. Grieve, "he said—' Is
not this a regular joke ? here are two rivals com-
peting for one prize, and I am making the designs
for both.' " Mr. Baldwin Wood and Mr. Francis
Shaw confirm the same fact, and are themselves
confirmed by other witnesses. Mr. Shaw, to whom
Pugin read many of the seventy-six letters of Barry,
which have been impounded by the treachery of
the latter, declares, partly on the evidence of those
letters, and partly on the confidential statements
of Pugin himself, that the Westminster Palace
" emanated from his conception." So well was this
known, and so universally recognized, that the Rev.
Mr. Voysey affirms, that " but for his religious be-
lief," he would have been the official, as he was
the real, art-architect of the Houses of Parliament.
One word, in conclusion, upon the letter of Sep-
tember 6th, 1845, upon which the relatives of
Barry found their assertion. Mr. Mares, the well-
known contractor, has already stated in the Times
how that letter came to be written, and what was
Pugin's own account of it. " Barry is in an awful
state," said his too-generous ally, " respecting the
reports which have oozed out about my being the
architect of the Houses, and he wants me to write
a letter to save his reputation ; it is gone if I do
not, and I have no alternative." The statement of
the Barry family that the letter was a spontaneous
act on the part of Pugin is, therefore, simply un-
true. The real meaning of the letter, which was
elicited by Barry's despair, was perfectly under-
stood at the time by every one interested in the
Houses, and implied no denial whatever of Pugin's
contributions to them, but was simply a noble
effort on his part to save the nominal architect from
public confusion. It may be added that, as Pugin
was the only living artist who at that time had
skill enough to do for Barry what the latter could
not do for himself, so he was, perhaps, the only
one who had generosity enough to display the
delicacy and forbearance for which Barry made so
evil a return. This great genius possessed the
heart of a little child, and sensitiveness which put
him at the mercy of any schemer who chose to
practise upon it. "Barry said I must write it,"
are his own touching words, in speaking after-
wards of his generous self-sacrifice, " and if I
hadn't, the whole thing must have beer (liven up ; the
Houses would have been ruined, and Barry's reputation
gone." But there is too much reason to fear that
what he suffered from his relations with Barry was
one of the causes which determined his final illness,
and deprived England of her greatest architect.
" I verily believe," says an illustrious artist, J. K.
Herbert, whose name will also be associated with
the Westminster Palace, " that it mainly led to
that melancholy barred dwelling at Kensington,
where I left him in the charge of strangers."
It only remains for us to thank Mr. E. Welby
Pugin for the udicious and temperate manner in.
which he has defended his father's honour, inn
which the nation is as much interested as himself_
No one can read his pamphlet without being con-
vinced that his father alone has any claim to be
considered the art-architect of the Houses of Par-
liament ; and we cordially agree with the Rev. Mr_
Voysey that " the Barry's will, in the end, alone;
have to regret that the question has been raised."

ROCHDALE, 23d.—There was only a small attend-•
ance of buyers in the flannel market to-day, and.
the business done in Yorkshire goods as well as.
flannels was very limited, as is usual at the markets.
just before Christmas. Upon the whole there was
a tolerably cheerful feeling in the trade, and prices,
were steady. Wools are nominally the same as last,
week,