The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-28 00:00:00

Personal Traits of Parliamentary Orators.

Among many salient peculiarities noticeable
during the current debate, in regard to this and that
speaker, the following may be just passingly men-
tioned:—The Under-Secretary for the Colonies,
(Mr. W. E. Forster) beginning nearly every other
sentence with "Now, really !"—The noble lord the
member for Stamford (Viscount Cranborne) be-
ing obviously a most venturesome debater himself,
continually venturing to think and venturing to say
all through his speech !—The hon. member for
Birmingham (Mr. Bright)'s perpetually wiping
his mouth with the forefinger of his right hand.—
The Chancellor of the Exchequer's whimsical habit
of emulating his great leader, even in that, to say
nothing of the latter, that is of Mr. Gladstone's recur-
ring so very often during his speeches to that myste-
rious little bottle of his hid away behind the official box
in front of the Treasury bench, his own particular
substitute for the newfangled glass of water, or even
for the old-fashioned Parliamentary orange. won-
dering over the contents of that bottle !—one is
bewildered in one's conjecture as to whether
it is some potent rhetorical elixir, from which
the right hon. gentleman draws the copious and
sonorous floods of his eloquence, or something in-
tensely restorative, employed by him to take the
taste from his lips of that most bitter acerbity of
word and manner with which his harangues of late
have been more than ever flavoured—last night, for
instance, more especially—meaning of course very
early this morning—whenthe acrimonous inflexions
of his voice, and the scornful derision dis-
torting the haggard lines of his countenance,
imparted an air of all but malignity to his retort (!)
or retaliation (!) upon Mr. Disraeli for one of the
least ironical and least satirical speeches we ever
remember to have listened to from the lips of that
once great Master of Irony and Sarcasm. Can any
one account for this all-but infuriated outpouring
of invective by the Chancellor of the Exchequer
upon those quondam friends and associates confront-
ing him ? To hear him and see him last night, or
rather early this morning, flouting with a
scornful wave of the hand, and an ineffable
sneer of disgust upon his lips the " Leader of the
Tory party, forsooth !"—one might really never have
supposed for one instant that the time had been
when another "Leader of the Tory Party " had
claimed and for years received Mr. Gladstone's
willing allegiance. A convert's enthusiasm we re-
spect at all times—but why this malignity of man-
ner, or if the manner be only assumed, why in the
name of fortune this over-wrought assumption of
malignity ? Has Mr. Disraeli upon some long past
and forgotten occasion, wounded Mr. Gladstone
amour propre so very hopelessly ?

CORRESPONDENCE FROM PARIS.

(nom OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
_ _

PARIS, Friday Evening.

The Siecle says :—" The news is confirmed that
the naval and military forces of Austria in Venetia
are placed upon the war footing, and the reserve is
called into activity. The Nazione of Florence sup-
poses that these demonstrations are directed rather
against Prussia than against Italy, unless—a cir-
cumstance which merits consideration—Austria has
the secret thought of thus provoking some incon-
siderate act calculated to compromise the policy
hitherto followed by the Italian Government. Some
of the Vienna papers appear to have serious fears
of the influence of the party of action in Italy : they
appear to foresee that the nation and the Govern-
ment will be forced into a campaign against
Austria, and insist that proofs exist of a secret
understanding between Italy and Prussia."
The Journal des Debuts says :—" The corre-
spondence of the day confirms the statement of the
extraordinary armaments of Austria in Venetia.
The Borsenhalle announces that the Archduke
Albert will leave immediately for Verona. The
Archduke will take the command of the Quadrilateral
Army, and relieve Marshal Benedeck, who will re-
main at the disposal of the Emperor. The same
paper adds that at the last Council of Ministers
held at Vienna it was decided to make military
preparations upon a very extensive scale. We know
not whether this information be well founded ; but,
even allowing for a little exaggeration, there is no
doubt whatever of the preparations in question,
and it is strange to see Austria push its armaments
with such activity in the South, at the moment that
it is disarming in the North."

The following is the result of the races yesterday
in the Bois de Boulogne :—Prix de I'Ecole Militaire,
4,oooL—Canonniere, 1 (Baron Rothschild) ; Ceres,
2 ; Gynis, 3. Prix de I'Esplanade,
1 ; Rabat Joie, 2; Coresia, 3. Poule des Products,
4,000 f., added to a sweepstakes of 500 f. each—.
Marengo, 1 (Count Lagrange) ; Collet Monte, 2 ;
Germanique, 3 ; Rochefort, 4'—the betting was 2 to
1 agst Marengo. Prix du Printemps, 10,000 f
Quaker, 1 ; Sultan, 2 ; La Fortune, 3 (Count La-
grange). Prix de Viroflay (handicap), 4,0001.
Droze, 1; Schooner, 2 ; Castagnette, 3—amount
of stakes, 4,375 f. ; 500 f. to the second. The Em-
peror and the Prince of Denmark were again pre-
sent.

An eminent soldier, :General Herbillon, has just
died. He entered the army in 1813, and was in
many campaigns. General Herbillon was in the
Senate for three years, but was not distinguished
as an orator. It was in the field that he achieved
his reputation. He was appointed Field-Marshal in
1846.

A mysterious story is told by some of the Paris
papers of the arrest of a man in London who mur-
dered a noble lady at her hotel in Paris in 1847.
An individual was arrested in Paris at the time
upon the charge, but he managed to poison himself
with arsenic. The account now given is that the
murderer is in London, and that his supposed corpse
was substituted for that of the real murderer. This
is a complete fabrication. The body of the man
who poisoned himself was dissected by two very
eminent surgeons, M. Orfila and M. Tardiem, and
their certificates, as well as those of the police
authorities, leave no doubt as to the proof of the
identity of the individual who was arrested in Paris
at the time.

There has been an attempt at murder in the Rue
du Faubourg, Montmartre. A man named M.
rushed into the room of M. D., who is engaged at
the Folies Dramatiques, while he was engaged at
dinnor with his wife, and, without saying a word,
fired a pistol at him. The ball struck near the
heart, and M. D. is not expected to survive. The
motive of the attempted murder is said to be that
the wounded man formerly had a criminal acquaint-
ance with the wife of the assassin.
It is officially announced that the Paris Exhibi-
tion of the paintings of living artists will be opened
on Tuesday next. The price of admission is 1 fr.
on week days, and on Sundays the exhibition will
be opened gratis.

It appears from the researches of M. Victor Le
Clerc, of the Sorbonne, relative to the newspapers
in France, that there were political and literary
journals in the time of the Romans. The Vene-
tians in the 17th century had a newspaper destined
chiefly for the use of shipowners. The second
newspaper created chronologically was that of
Theophraste Renandot, physician to Louis XIII.,
which was founded in May, 1631. It was called
the Gazette, and afterwards became the Gazette de
Prance, which boasts now on its title-page that it
has existed for 235 years. The first number of the
Gazette of May, 1631, has the following news :
" The King of Persia with 15,000 horses and
50,000 men is now asseiging Dille, two days march
from Babylon, where the Grand Seignor has
ordered all the Janissaries to repair upon
pain of death, and continues to make ob-
stinate war against all consumers of tobacco
whom he suffocates with smoke." Among the mis-
cellaneous news (faits divers) in the Gazette of
the same date (May 30, 1631), is an account of
a quarrel at a wedding in the environs of Rouen, in
which eleven persons were killed. The number of
October 20, 1864, contains an account of the arrival
at Marseilles of the Mandarins sent to Louis XIV.
by the King of Siam. It also states that
Louis XIV. took the Sacrament the previous even-
ing, which was administered by Cardinal de
Bouillon, and that he afterwards touched a number
of sick persons, who supposed that his doing so