The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-18 00:00:00

PUGIN AND BARRY

(From the Westminster Gazette.)
The controversy between the claims of Pugin and
Barry to the authorship of the Houses of Parliament
is likely to become one of the causes celebres of the
day. Nothing can be more creditable to Mr. E.
Welby Pugin than the desire to see his father's
name righted before the public ; and the ability,
the perseverance, the discretion which he has dis-
played in bringing the mass of evidence together, in
suggesting the most probable explanation of any
seeming or actual discrepancy, and the clearness
with which he has stated his case are recognized
on all sides.
His statement in the Times of Saturday last was
very conclusive in establishing a prima facie case--
a case which cannot now be put aside by mere dis-
claimers on the part of those who arc bound to
produce clear and positive evidence. That Mr.
E. Welby Pugin's evidence is chiefly constructive
evidence is no fault of his. His was not the hand
which waylaid and burned letters and documents,
and drawings, and designs, so that with their
ashes all traces of clear and positive testimony
might be dispersed. But enough of the volumi-
nous correspondence between Sir Charles Barry
and Augustus Welby Pugin, stretching over a long
period of years, still survives to indicate, if not
to prove, that the confidential relations between
these two men were those of fellow-labourers in
one great work to which Pugin contributed his
genius, and Barry his name. Let our readers re-
flect on the circumstances as related by Mr. E.
Welby Pugin, and which Mr. E. Barry cannot con-
tradict or explain, under which seventy-six of these
letters disappeared at a critical juncture, and they
will be forced to the conclusion that in the corres-
pondence and documents which were on any other
supposition so unaccountably destroyed, evidence
would have been :found of such a nature as to
defy contradiction or cavil. On hearing, then,
that a biography of Pugin was about to be pub-
lished, Sir Charles Barry called upon Mr. E. Welby
Pugin, and was told by him that he intended to
substantiate his father's long-ignored right to be
considered the real architect of the Houses of Par-
liament, and that for the purpose of such a public
substantiation he should make use of Sir Charles
Barry's correspondence with his father, Sir Charles
Barry showed agitation and alarm, and asked to
be allowed to inspect these letters, under the pro-
mise of returning them the next clay. From that
day to this the letters have never been seen. No
claim of right of ownership was set up ; they were
simply made away with. The evidence which
they contained, of whatever value, was destroyed
by the hand of the man who, at least according to
the prima facie case now established, would have
been fatally compromised by the production of that
evidence. Such an act unaccounted for, would
in a court of law brand the perpetrator with the
gravest suspicion.
Matters of this kind are slow in coming be-
fore the public. There is a natural reluctance to
bring disputed claims to a public arbitrament ;
more especially when the one party is backed up by
all the strength which long, though unrighteous,
possession gives—by the influence and prospect
of future reward, which the enjoyment of present
patronage, perhaps unconsciously confers—and the
other is almost single-handed, and has only his
own courage, his own ability, and the overmaster-
ing sense of justice and duty, which compel him

in spite of risking► his own professional advance-
ment, to vindicate his father's fair fame and unre-
quited services. No sooner is public interest
aroused in the disputed claim, than the old memo-
ries of the time come back, and the floating tradi-
tion that in reality, somehow or other, Pugin, the
great Gothic architect, who electrified the town
with his enthusiasm and his fierce and witty
attacks on the shams of the day, was the designer
of the Houses of Parliament. But since at the

time there was none to dispute Barry's publicly
acknowledged claim, and since Pugin himself,
when his name was in every one's mouth, came
forward, why men at the time knew not, and gave
Barry all the credit, the public thought there was
a mystery about the matter, shrugged its shoulders,
as is its wont under such circumstances, and went
its way. But now, when the seeming mystery is
explained why Pugin forewent his claims, and
when a claimant in the person of his son comes for-
ward and submits evidence that the vague tradition
which imputed the conception of the Houses of
Parliament to Pugin is founded on facts of various
descriptions, and though of unequal weight, yet
all tending in one direction the public, fond of jus-
tice and fair play, will not stand by and allow
those in possession of a disputed title, to waive
the necessity of making it good by positive proof.
It is not enough that they content themselves
with reiterated denials uttered by several voices
speaking under one inspiration, if not at one
dictation. The public, if we are not mistaken,
will side with one who in spite of arduous pro-
fessional occupations, finds time and has the
courage in face of great disadvantages, with
evidence mutilated by his opponent, to come for-
ward and claim a hearing. By the evidence which
he has produced in his statement in the Times, in
his letters to the Pall Mall Gazette, to the Globe,
and the Sun, and the Building New, Mr. E. Welby
Puginhas fairly established a prinza facie case. He
has witnesses reluctant, perhaps, but still capable
of giving unassailable testimony on behalf of his
father's claim. The seeming incredibility of a man's
acting as Pugin is alleged to have done in giving
Barry credit for a work which was his own is, by
the testimony of those familiar with Pugin's
character, converted into an antecedent probability
of his so acting. The evidence, therefore, already
produced, is strengthened by this antecedent pro-
bability, and unfavourable judgments, based on
an opposite opinion, have to be reversed.
The burden of proof now clearly lies on Mr. E.
Barry and those who are acting with him. There
can be no difficulty,
if his father really was the
designer of the Houses of Parliament, to bring
forward proof positive. lie only weakeis his case
by relying on the memory of assistants and clerks
in his father's office, or on the reports of men
who, twenty years ago, were the friends of Pugin,
but who were also, and in a much more recent
period, the friends and supporters of Barry. How
should such men know the private arrangement as
to the designs for the Houses of Parliament which
may have subsisted between Barry and Pugin?
Is it likely that Barry would have revealed to the
clerk of his office, or to his assistants and

......____
like Mr. '.l'. Bury, the " secrets of the prison-
house."

Their negative testimony is not worth a button ;
its only use is to throw dust in the eyes of the un-
wary. Of the same character is the ostentatious
use which Mr. E. Barry makes of Augustus Welby
Pugin's letter of 1845, disclaiming all credit for
the designs of the Houses of Parliament. Had
Pugin sold, as is alleged and not yet disproved,
these designs for £4OO, could he have done less, in
common honesty, than disavow to obtrusive ques-
tioners, in public or private, his authorship ? Was
it not a part of the bargain ? Was it not "in the
bond ?" Does not Mr. Barry remember that, on
far less imperative grounds, Sir Walter Scott dis-
avowed the authorship of " Waverley ?" Was
Sir Walter Scott therefore a liar?

There are three strong points in favour of Mr.
E. Welby Pugin's statement. First—the evidence
which has been collected bit by bit hangs well
together, and coming from various sources points
in one direction, and necessarily leads up to one
conclusion. Secondly—the counter evidence, if
contradiction can be called evidence, instead of
being, as from the nature of the case it ought
to have been, clear as daylight, and positive
as a post, has been contradictory and vacilla-
ting in the extreme. The only point which the
defendants in this cause have gained was to make
at least one of Pugin's reputed friends and ad-
mirers, on whose testimony the son had good
grounds to rely, depreciate to an extravagant and
ridiculous degree the share which Pugin had in
the building of the Houses of Parliament. And
thirdly—Pugin's character and the circumstances of
the time, his conversion to Catholicism, and many
other matters which need not he detailed, all con-
spired to make the alleged arrangement between
himself and Sir Charles Barry not only not in-
credible, but, on the contrary, highly probable.
Mr. E. Welby Pugin has had the courage to
bring the disputed claim to a public test; there
can now be no shrinking from a decision. His aim
is to let the public get at the truth, and to vin-
dicate for his father's memory the honour which
he never enjoyed in life. It is a noble and gener-
ous task, and we are sure the sympathy of the
public will be on his side.

THE CATHOLIC CONGRESS OF MALINES.

The opening of the Catholic Congress at Malines
took place on Monday, the 2nd of September, all
the members attending High Mass in the Cathedral,
which was celebrated by the Cardinal Archbishop.
About twelve o'clock the Archbishop of Malines,
the Bishops of Tournai, Namur and Li6ge, accom-
panied by M. de MCrode, the former Minister of
War at Rome, by the Bishop of Bosra, the Patriarch
of Antioch, M. Laforet, the Rector of the Univer-
sity of Lidge, and several priests went in procession
to the great hall of the seminary, where the other
members of the Congress and the audience, num-
bering altogether about 5,000 persons, had taken
their places. The Cardinal Archbishop opened
the Congress. In his speech he said that at his first
audience with the Pope, on the occasion of his
recent visit, he obtained from his Holiness his con-
sent for the third assembly of this Congress ; and
the best counsels he could give them were counsels

from the highest and most venerable authority
upon earth ; not that he was specially commissioned
to give them counsels, for his Holiness relied on
the wisdom and prudence of which this assembly
had given so many striking proofs. The counsels
to which his Eminence wished to direct the atten-
tion of the assembly were contained in the splendid
Allocution which the Pope delivered on the 29th of
June to the five hundred bishops assembled round
his throne, and he concluded by saying :—" As
this Congress had always shown itself to be of
one heart and of one mind, he admonished it also
in the present session to complete that union by a
most intimate union with the glorious Pontiff Pius
IX."

An address was then drawn up to His Holiness
Pope Pius IX., and M. de M6rode was commis-
sioned to communicate by telegraph to His Holi-
ness the unanimous adoption of the address by
the Congress.
The second session of the Congress was opened
by the presentation to the Congress of the Bishop
of Orleans. The Rev. P. llyacinthe and M. de
Falloux accompanied their distinguished country-
men. He was received with loud acclamations
from all parts of the vast hall. After a few words
from the President of welcome to the Congress,
the worthy representative of Catholic France,
Mgr. Dupanloup, ascended the tribune. We are
sorry to be obliged to hold over our report of the
Bishop of Orleans speech till next week.
The honorary presidents of the committee are
his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Malines
and the Baron de Gerlache ; honorary vice-presi-
dent, Count de Theux ; vice-president, Dgllafaille
Vicomte de Kerckhove.

Besides the general meetings there are special
sessions of the various sections which take up the
attention of the members nearly the whole day.
These sessions also attract so large an audience
that the large hall in which the general meeting
assembles scarcely suffices to contain the immense
multitudes that attend. But in the evening the
members meet, however, for social intercourse at
the Catholic club, the Loyaute." In the next
meeting, held on Wednesday, M. Dechamps made
an excellent speech on the unity of the Church,
which he represented as a proof of the truth of the
Catholic faith, as a condition of the liberty of con-
science, as a guarantee of the faith, and, lastly, as
the source of the fertile power of Catholicism. A
Barnabite monk, Father Tondini, spoke on the
means of the restoration of Russia to the Catholic
faith. Mgr. Lynch, the well known Bishop of
Charleston, spoke on the progress of Catholicism in
the United States, and on the Catholic mission on
behalf of the negroes. General de Lannoy called the
attention of the assembly to the merits of the Papal
Zouaves, and as two Papal Zouaves happened to
be present, they were invited to come on the
platform. No sooner had they taken their places
than the whole assembly gave them a warm tribute
of recognition. It was resolved that the committee
of the Congress should send a letter to the Pope's
Minister of War, expressing the satisfaction of the
Congress at the report which they had received
of the good conduct of their countrymen among
the Papal Zouaves. The appearance of M.
Dumortier, who took his place between M. de
Falloux and P. Hyacinthe, was the signal of another
outburst of enthusiasm. This meeting was also
attended by the Bishop of Ghent. Among other
notable personages present were Mgr. Woodlock,
rector of the Catholic University of Dublin; Mgr.
SacrC, Rector of the Belgian College in Rome ;
La Feunti, Professor of Canon Law in Madrid ;
Father Hecker, Superior of the Paulists in New
York ; and several members of the Belgian
Chambers and other distinguished persons.
At the fifth general meeting, P. Hyacinthe
spoke " On the condition of the working classes."
M. de Falloux also spoke with his accustomed
power, but our space prevents us giving these
able speeches. M. de Falloux read to the Congress
a letter from Count Montalembert, expressing his
regret that illness prevented his attending the
Congress of Malines. At the close of the day's
meeting, M. Dumortier seconded a proposition of
M. Dechamps to convey to Count Montalembert,
on the part of the Catholics of Belgium, expression
of deep sympathy, and the hope of the speedy
restoration of his health and activity, so advanta-
geous to the Church and society. This proposal,
which was unanimously carried, brought the fifth
day of the Congress of Malines to a close.— IVest-
Minster Gazette.

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