The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-29 00:00:00

JOURNAL,

SPIRIT OF

TIMES.-A lady's view of the Irish question possesses an
interest of its own, and that expressed in the letter from
3 An Irishwoman," which we publish to-day, if not quite

original, will be new to many of our readers. Lord Dnf-
ferin had justly pointed to the want of social unity in Ire-
land, and to the absence of any kindly sympathy between

rich and poor, as one of the master evils which no legisla-
tion can reach. Our correspondent entirely adopts this

opinion, but disputes the inference which Lord Dufferin
founds upon it. She denies that residence in Ireland is

distasteful to Irish landowners, or that an indisposition to
cultivate habits of friendly intercourse with the peasantry
prevails among their wives and daughters. These agencies

of "domestic association," according to her account, have
been honestly and repeatedly tried, but have signally failed.
She proceeds to illustrate from her own experience what
she alleges to be the reason of this failure and chief source
of absenteeism. Domestic comfort depends everywhere, in
a great degree, on a well-regulated household, and in Ire-
land a well-regulated household is a thing almost unknown
unless the mistress is her own housekeeper. "In order to
procure in Ireland ordinary domestic comfort an expendi-

ture of physical effort is required on the part of every indi-

vidual woman who has the wants and desires common to

the people of this country, and who does not choose to

forego their gratification." So low is the standard of
cleanliness, tidiness, and thrift, not to say of decency,

among the cottagers, that the raw material of good ser-
vants does not exist. The consequence is, that servants

have to be imported, at very high wages. from England or
Scotland, and the civilising influence which ought to ox-

tend downwards from the homes of the rich to the homes

of the poor is proportionably weakened. At all events, the
occupants of the gentleman's house "have no domestic
senso in common" with the occupants of the cabins around,
and prejudicesalmost as inveterate as those of casteprevent
the latter from imitating "the ways" of the former. The
homely details of household economy and the rearing of
children are subjects on which an English lady of the
highest rank can talk on terms of perfect equality, and with
out the least constraint, with the humblest labourer's wife
in the parish, because the difference between the two is
rather a difference of means than of ideas. In Ireland, as
every one knows, it is far otherwise. An Irish housewife
is not astamed of being slatternly in hor own person, of
seeing her husband in tatters, or of letting the pig wallow
in the same room with her children. " The feminine arts
of cleaning, cooking, and sewing" are mysteries which she
has never learnt and does not care to learn ; indeed, she
would resent any suggestion about them from her superiors
with no little scorn. Religion being a forbidden topic, in
most cases, it thus comes to pass that Irish ladies have no
motive for visiting their poorer neighbours, and have little
personal knowledge of them. This is a melancholy pic-

ture, but it will be recognised as substantially true to nature
by those who best know Irish society. The question is
whether anything can be done to break down this social
barrier, to bring the families of the highest and lowest
classes into more frequent and intimate connection with
each other, and thereby to diminish the causes which de-
prive Ireland of that which no other country needs so much
—a resident body of proprietors. Our correspondent her-
self almost despairs of an effectual remedy, and we fear
she by no means exaggerates the difficulties to be over-
come. What she proposes, not, indeed, as a specific, but
as a palliative, is the improvement of female industrial
training, by means of a special organisation to be carried
on by ladies. She complains, with too much justice, that
intellectual instruction, such as is provided in Govern-
ment schools and controlled by Government inspectors,
does not and cannot touch the root of the mischief, and
contrasts some of the schools under the charge of
nuns, or other female managers, with those where
no superintendence of this kind is exercised. She
avows her conviction that " ladies who have long
been labouring among the poor, and who thoroughly un-
derstand their incapacities and their abilities," would dis-
tribute educational grants to greater advantage, and inspect
female schools more efficiently," than the learned and anxious

gentlemen who now constitute the sole examiners o
boys and gies." She asserts that "in France and other
parts of the Continent express training is given to the
faculties of women whose exact counterparts inhabit Ire-
land." She believes that not only "cleanliness and thrift,"
but a higher "tone of domestic feeling," may be imparted
by educational methods, and that " the dirtiest and most
untidy" of Irish girls could be made useful in their station
and enabled to better themselves, if proper institutions
could be established for their education. On this point we
must confess to being less sanguine. Unless a radical
change should come over the character of the working
classes in Ireland, we have great doubts whether young
women taken from them, and looking forward, as they all
do, to ending their lives among their relations, will ever
be converted into good servants by any educational pro-
cess. The experiment, unhappily, is not a new one.
Many an Irish girl has before this been trained with the
utmost care under female supervision in English families,
has been persuaded to lay by a little money, and placed in
a position to marry and settle comfortably, according to
English notions. What is the ordinary result ? No
sooner does she escape from the restraints of order and
cleanliness than she relapses into the condition whence she
had apparently emerged, and soon makes her husband's
house as much like her father's as possible. It is not po-
verty alone, but sheer laziness and a native love of dis-
order, that causes Irish cottages to resemble pigsties.
There are farmers in receipt of a hundred a year, or with
thousands invested, whose daughters may be seen at church
or chapel flaunting in silks and feathers, yet who are con-
tent with a standard of lodging andboardlower than would
satisfy a day labourer in the worst of our agricultural
counties. It is easy to understand why persons like our
correspondent should prefer an inferior residence and re-
duced establishment in London to living, perhaps at a dis-
tance of several miles from any congenial society, among
neighbours who almost repel their good offices, and whose
condition they have striven in vain to raise. And yet we
cannot bring ourselves to regard the case as hopeless, or to
doubt that civilisation is advancing, however slowly, in
Ireland. A social reform, which it seems hopeless to effect
directly from above, may be, and we trust is, already effect-
ing itself indirectly from below. It is certain that mud
cabins of the worst kind are not so numerous, even in pro-
portion to population, as they were ; that wages are rising;
that farming is becoming less slovenly ; that English en-
terprise and capital are telling in certain districts ; that
emigration itself has in some degree brought home the
dignity of labour to the Irish mind. There is a move-
ment going on, thotigh it is so irregular , and intermittent
that we call hardly distinguish its force or direction, ac-
customed as we are to the more rapid march of improve-
ment in our own happier island. Ono generation is, after
all, but a short period in the history of a nation,. and one
generation has not yet passed since Ireland was visited by
a famine, the recurrence of which, at least with like seve-
rity, is already, humanly speaking, impossible. Twenty
years hence, if the true friends of Ireland do not relax
their efforts, the social state which now seems to us so
immovable may be seen to have been steadily progressive.
THE " SCIENTIFIC REVIEW" ON THE SOUTH KENSINGTON
CLIQUE.—The following admirable article appears in the
last number of the Scientific Review, a monthly magazine of
great ability, issued as the journal of the Inventors' Insti-
tute :—lt is our duty to call the serious attention of our
readers to the " Clique" which is at preseut so strenuously
endeavouring to bring to completion the notorious South
Kensington projects. Its most active members are non
homines, who love to flutter around the homines multarum
imaginunz ; and who expect that, in making themselves use-
ful to their patrons, they will shine by reflected light, and,
what is still better, secure to themselves, in due time, solid
advantages of some kind or another. If they are success-
fnl, the result will be not only to waste a quarter of a mil-
lion of the public money, but to render all but useless a
collection of the highest importance to science—in addition
to other changes of a most pernicious character. The plans
of these gentlemen are highly comprehensive, and possess,
at least, both vastness and audacity. One of their objects
is to remove the Natural History collection of the British
Museum to a most inconvenient and comparatively romote
suburb, to establish there' a so-styled Central Hall of Arts
and Sciences, and to transfer the Patent Law Museum to
the same out-of-the-way place. The South Kensington
Central Hall of Arts and Sciences is an old project revived.
It was a favourite idea of the late Prince Consort, and it is
now being pushed forward under pretence of respect for his
memory—a feeling which, it is supposed, will silence allop-
ponents. Unwilling subscribers are importuned inthe name
of her Majesty and the Prince, and sums varying from £2OO
to £2,000 are extorted from courtiers, place-hunters, and
persons scarcely in a position to refuse them.
The Central Hall of Arts and Sciences is to be an ellip-
tical building, 250 ft. long, sufficient to accommodate 5,600
persons, and will cost £200,000. The wiseacres who planned
it have adopted the elliptic form, no doubt because some of
them have a hazy idea that it possesses peculiar acoustic
properties, but they have not science enough to know that
these properties are exactly such as to render it most un-
suitable for the use to which the building is destined.
To what a wonderful melange of purposes is this Hall of
Omniscience to be devoted ! To congresses of science and
art, musical performances, distribution of prizes, conver-
sazioni, agricultural, horticultural, and artistic exhibitions,
civic processions, and other sensational displays. The
clique are, at any rate, determined to have plenty of strings
to their how ; if it fails as a Central Hall of Science, its
princely, noble, and obsequious shareholders can fall back
on a thousand devices, including legerdemain, tight-rope
dancing, spirit-rapping—in short, anything that will bring
in a ready penny. But let them not confide too much in
the far-sightedness of their plans ; establishments very like
what they propose, though far more suitably located, have
invariably failed to realise the magnificent expectations of
their projectors.
It is true, the contributors are pretty well secured from
serious loss. The commissioners of the Exhibition of 1862
have most liberally, as we are told, bestowed upon them a
site gratis, and have, in addition, guaranteed £50,000 out
of the £200,000 required. We demand, however, what
right the commissioners have thus to dispose of public pro-
perty at their pleasure ? Are they not giving away with
pompous generosity to a number of speculators that which
was intended to be used only for strictly public purposes ?
If the natural history department of the British Museum
bo transferred to Soutli Kensington, who, we ask, will fre-

quent it, save nursemaids and children, the habitues of the
" Brompton Boilers ?" These, no doubt, will be very grate-
ful to those who have enabled them to see for nothing such

a nice collection of birds, beasts, and fishes. But, as re-

Bards men of science, the locality is far too much an ultima
thule for them to visit it. Scarcely any place less central

could be selected for the proposed " Central Hall of Arts
and Sciences." The very name, Central Hull, is a blunder,
the absurdity of which must be apparent to all.
The South Kensington cliquearo gifted with imperturb-
able effrontery and indomitable perseverance ; they
are never abashed by exposure nor discouraged by
defeat. However often they may be hurled to the
ground they would seem to rise from it, like
Anta3us, with new vigour. They count, doubtless, on

wearing out their opponents, and expect to obtain what
they seek "because of their importunity."
Parliament has, however, already spoken on the subject,

and in a manner which cannot be mistaken. When the

notorious scheme for purchasing the Exhibition building
of 1862 was brought forward, all party differences were
forgotten, and both the job and its prouloters were sent

about their business with indignation and contempt. The
House of Commons will, no doubt, confirm the judgment
it has pronounced, and this time, as we trust, peremptorily
and for ever.

A number of eminent persons, every way capable of
'orming a correct judgment in the matter, have recorded

an opinion diametrically opposed to the South Kensington

projects. The Commission which sat 16 years ago, and which

consisted of Lords Ellesmere, Canning, and Wrottesley,
of Bishop Stanley, Sir Roderick Murchison, Joseph Hume,

Monckton Mi]nes, Shaw Lefevre, &c., say s, in its report,

"To any scheme embracing the notion of relieving the
_ __ _

museum, either partially or wholly, from its collection of
natural history, we have seen objections in limine sufficient

;o deter us from giving it any detailed consideration. Any

attempt to segregate any portion of the natural history,

or to scatter in various localities the components of their
vast aggregate, would involves, sacrifice of groat scientific
advantage."
Since this report was issued, public opinion has become
still more distinct. The Select Committee of 1860 suggested
the enlargement of the British Museum by the purchase of
the land adjoining to it. That would cost too much, for-

sooth ! Economy is very convenient as a mask; but
enormous sums are recklessly squandered in other public
departments without remorse. Six years have elapsed
since the committee declared that the truly noble and really
central establishment in Great Russell-street should be
adequately enlarged ; but nothing has yet been done in the
matter, although land in that locality is augmenting in
value every day. This apathy is, however, explained by
the evident determination of some to carry out, at all
hazards, the objectionable scheme we denounce.
The question practically resolves itself into this : Shall
the South Kensington clique be permitted, by dint of
courtly intrigue and unworthy artifice, to set aside the
recorded opinion of the most eminent men in the country ;
to render of no avail the deliberate decision of the House of
Commons; and to disregard the public convenience and
the requirements of science? Will Mr. Gladstone, in any
proposition he may.venture to bring forward, dare to ignore
these important considerations ?
Another of the South Kensingston schemes is, we be-

lieve, the removal of the Patent Offices. Patentees are, in
general, men to whom, in the strictest sense, time is money,
and it would be most unreasonable to drag them to South
Kensington, merely that the crotchets of busybodies, and
the schemes of interested intriguers, may be carried out.
The locality best of all suited for a Patent Office—and,
indeed, ,for a really Central Hall of Science, Literature, and
Art —would be Trafalgar-square, in the rear of the presont li
National Gallery. It has been shown by the Council of
the Inventors' Institute that five acres of space could there
be acquired for a very moderate sum. Upon this, galleries
of paintings, a museum of inventions, and halls for the use
of the various learned societies might be erected, and a
building be raised worthy of the nation, and calculated to
satisfy public convenience and the requirements of all
legitimately interested in the question. (We shall refer
to this in our next.) A portion of the cost might be
fairly taken from the surplus patent fund, which now
amounts to over £300,000.
What, we ask, in conclusion, has entitled the South
Kensington Clique to arrogate to themselves the disposal
of the treasures of science ? We are not aware that,
either collectively or individually, they have contributed
one single iota to its progress ; and certainly the leading
men of science could be hardly expected to co-operate with
such scientific nobodies. It must be observed, however,
that the intolerable inconvenience which would arise from
such a transfer is no guarantee that it will not take place ;
unless the vindicators of science, and the guardians of the
common weal, exert themselves. Let them be up,there-
fore and stirring ; prevention not only is better, but
infinitely more easy, than cure.

HERALD.—Mr. Bright, after his shameful letter to Bir-
mingham, went " accidentally" to Manchester, there to ,
embitter and poison the minds of the uneducated classes
by further calumnies and aspersions upon all that is great
and permanent in England. We marvel, however, at the
blindness of the self-smitten Samson, who is pulling down
the structure of his own hands with a desperation not to
be accounted for except on the hypothesis that he knows his
ammunition to bo nearly spent. What weapons has he left
wherewith to assail the Constitution ? The innumerable
roughs, who are to follow him, as a certain multitude fol-
lowed Lord G. Gordom with a demonstration of windows
broken, carriages overturned, property threatened, and the
public peace destroyed,l while he bullies the House of Com-
mons into passing a measure, the only fault of which, he
says, is that it would admit other than the working classes
to the franchise. Volleys of stones, indignation open-air
meetings, Primrose-hill fiascos, tavern spouting, and all
the old obsolete machinery, must be put in motion ; but
there is one fact which Mr. Bright, with his dogged and
imperious sectarianism, will not remember--it is that the
popular weathercock has grown rusty. It will not turn
when he breathes with east-wind bitterness. It stands,
stiff and indifferent, while he howls. But we thank him
for stating plainly what he and his confederates mean.
They declare that the Gladstone bill shall pass, that Par-
liament dare not reject it, that a curse, chaos, and confis-
cation will ensue if it be Mooted. We are threatened
openly with insurrection if the measure be not adopted.
To what viler artifices could demagoguism descend ? That
the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain should thus be
menaced by a coarse political pugilist with peltings and
hootings because the more dignified sections of the Liberal
party will not be led by Lord Russell—who must loathe
this tyranny while he endures it—into a Radical ambus-
cade, is disgraceful in itself ; but that any set of public
men should hear without rebuking language so cowardly
and infamous is wonderful indeed. Mr. Bright, the real
author of the bill, and the only man in Parliament who
sincerely cares for it, is prepared with many reasons for the
House of Commons, for the aristocracy, for the Ministry,
and for the people, why it should pass. If it does not a
dissolution should take"plape. If a dissolution does not
take place, the Government must fall. In that event the
estates of the high Whig families may be in peril. There
may be a vast anarchy in the kingdom, and this amounts
to a prophecy of physical force, which, in another part of
the realm, might be held as treasonable. Even the member
for Birmingham never yet descended so low. It is the as-
sumption, in fact, of a brutal dictatorship at the head of a
bludgeon armed mob—only as yet the mob is not forth-
coming. Among the signs of the times none is more re-
markable than that the creature formerly known as
your "pot-house politician" has disappeared. He rants
at no tavern, and sets no village by the ears. But Mr.
Bright would revive him. He tells the people that they
are despised; that they are trodden down by the rich;
that great rentals are inimical to their rights; that there
may come a time, though not exactly yet, when they can
justly touch the acres of the territorial aristocracy; that
acts of violence and acts of terrorism are measures to be
kept in reserve ; but that Lord Grosvenor " has nothing to
gain" from the agitation which the Birmingham dema-
gogue, whose "dirty" language has offended his oldest
friends, will do his utmost and his worst to provoke. This
implies, of course that he has something to lose. We are
promised anothi3r march from the Midland, an ignoble
hustings scene at Westminster, an incendiary demonstra-
tion, a ferocious pressure upon Parliament, and if Mr.
Bright were strong enough we should have to endure the
full effects of his monstrous revolutionary passion. He
cannot, however, raise the spirit he invokes ; he is frantic
with disappointed egotism ; the nation is superciliously in-
different to his appeals; and, degrading himself from one
demagogic trick to another, he at last appears as the suc-
cessor of Feargus O'Connor. Smashed panels, shivered
glass, personal fright, the common yell, and the ragged
execrations of a mob, are to be the influences under which
Parliament is to legislate at his bidding. It is a melancholy
spectacle. He is a man of mark. He possesses extraor-
dinary eloquence—in his case a dangerous and lamentable
power—he is listened to, in and out of Parliament, with
attention. Yet his language is so unscrupulous, his mind
is so incapable of a compunction, and his cheek so un-
conscious of a blush, that the nation must be ashamed at
length to 1 reckon him among its public men. We
had almost hoped that the period of physical force
counsels had passed. But what else can be signi-
fied by the constant harping, with insolent assumption
and coars2 illiberality, upon "popular indignation ?" Is
the bill an indignation bill, or a well considered measure ?
What is meant ,by "setting something going ?" What is
intended by new Penenden Heath gatherings ? Firstly,
that Mr. Bright does not believe in the success of the bill,
for ho positively predicts a three months' agitation to come.
Secondly, that his hope lies in the vanity, violence, and
blindness of the mob to whom he appeals, but which is by
no means so large as ho imagines. Great meetings and
great petitions, ho says, are needed. Let him take the test
of history. There were never 2,000,000 of signatures at-
tached to any petition, after months had been expended on
the most minute district work of collecting names, and the
most wholesale caricature and forgery. Therefore, a ma-
jority of millions refused to move or to speak in the matter.
Again, in the largo towns of England, from first to last, a
gathering might be summoned which should no more re-
present their public opinion than St. Martin's-hall or Exe-
ter-hall represents the educated opinion of the metropolis.
We very strongly doubt, however, whether the inflamma-
tory and slanderous declamation of Mr. Bright will lead' o
any such result. The towns do not move. The local

cliques are active, it is true ; but the prevailing feeling is,
as it was in 1854, that Parliament is asked to legislate less
for the working classes than for Lord Russell and hisallies
who regard the British constitution as something to be
altered and adjusted to suit special conveniences and party.
ends. Mr. Bright is employed to engage popular support
for this theory. Will he succeed ? He is doing his utmost,
we are honestly convinced, to fail. He advocates turbulence
and terrorism, and all, be it kept in mind, to dictate an act
of legislation to be followed by eight or nine others of si-
milar scope and tendency. Twelve years ago a particular
speeeh of his was characterised by an able writer as " atro-
cious nonsense." We can scarcely hope to describe either
the Birmingham letter or the Manchester speech more fitly.
For, taking their converse, what would it be ? How
the Radicals would shriek and execrate were Parlia-
ment, in presence of this lawless threat of siege and coer-
cion, to resolve upon legislating with a park of artillery and
a regiment of cavalry in Palace-yard. Yet that is precisely
the principle, officially interpreted, which Mr. Bright in-
terprets in what he takes to be the popular sense. He calls
upon the rabble of the towns, up and down all England, to
Imeet and menace the Legislature ; he would supersede the
present artificial agitation by a movement of the masses
I dangerous to peace and property; he aims at creating
convulsion and discontent. But we have so much faith in
public opinion as to be confident that this hackneyed blus-
ter will be ineffectual, and that Mr. Bright's brick-bat tac-
tics will help the Reform Bill no more than it has been
helped by the advocacy of its promoters.

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