The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

MORNING HERALD.—The preliminaries of peace
having been signed, and an armistice of four weeks
concluded, which will last throughout the greater
part of the month of August, the war between the
German Powers may be considered at an end.
Ample time is allowed for the conclusion of the treaty
of peace in all its details, for which purpose the re-
presentatives of the Powers will meet at some neu-
tral town, probably in Switzerland. The Treaty of
Basle, or Geneva, or whatever it may be, will define
the limits within which the rival powers of Austria
and Prussia will be suffered to extend henceforth ;
will settle the position of the minor States, whose
interests or whose very existence have been at stake
in this struggle. To Italy it will give Venetia, not
conquered by her, whom Austria has defeated both
by land and by sea, but won by the prowess of her
powerful ally of the north, whose triumphant arms,
aiming at the very heart of Austria, have forced her,
in the instinct of self-preservation, to let Venice go.
Dreadful things are predicted as likely to arise out
of this feeling of the Italians that what they have
gained has not been achieved by themselves, in spite
of all their patriotism and the prodigal expenditure
of the seven years since Villafranca. 'We may pre-
sume, however, that calm reflection will convince
them that they are fortunate in earning so much
when they might have lost all ; will suggest to them
that they must needs be satisfied, when their ally is
content, that the dubious successes of their Volun-
teers and the triumphs of the Medici Brigade
over an unseen enemy, are scarcely such as
to entitle them to claim. from Austria the
cession of half of the Tyrol, Istria, and
Trieste. After the misfortunes of Custozza and
Lissa Italy will hardly stand in need of the persua-
sion of France to induce her to agree to a peace
which will leave her mistress of herself " from the
Alps to the Adriatic." We are faster than our fore-
fathers in all things ; we live faster, we grow faster,
we fight and we die faster. The old middle-age 30
years' war in Germany, compared with the Italian
campaign in 1859, or this war in 1866, was as the
old stage coach or the semaphore, compared with
the steam trains, and the electric telegraph. It took
the Great Frederick seven years to accomplish far
less than his successors have done in a fortnight.
The founder of Prussian monarchy built up a sort
of skeleton of empire, his successor has rounded that
anatom into a magnificent whole. Whatever else
these preliminaries of peace may signify, they mean
this—that Prussia has conquered and that Austria
has for ever resigned the right to rule in Germany.
All Germany north of the Maine is to be formed
into a confederation under the leadership of Prussia.
Southern Germany, with which a separate armistice
has been concluded, is to be left free to form a sepa-
rate confederacy if it chooses, but Austria is to take
no part in such a confederacy. The -victory of
Koniggratz is admitted to be decisive. Prussia,
supreme in Northern Germany, will be allowed,
whenever it may seem convenient to her, to take
under her wing also Bavaria, Baden, and Wurtem-
burg. Austria will have nothing to do with such
combinations. She retires from Germany; she ceases
to be a German Power ; she takes along with her
German peoples, who must
consent to accept her fu-
ture of Sclavonic empire. The inhabitants of Moravia,
of4the Archduchy of Austria, of the Salzburg country,
Styria, and the German Tyrol, will have henceforth
no part in the future of the German fatherland; like
a rolling snowball, Prussia is gathering around her
the scattered elements of the great Teutonic nation-
ality. It will be for her to decide how soon she may
mediatise or annex the independent countries which
are to form the Confederation of the North. She
proposes to annex at once a large part of Hanover,
the whole of Electoral Hesse, Nassau, and the free
city of Frankfort. The Emperor of the French has
extended his mgis over Saxony, and Saxony, for the
present, will remain an independent sovereignty.
With the exception of a small portion of Northern
Schleswig the Danish Duchies, it is said, will be an-
nexed to Prussia. The reversion of the Duchy of
Brunswick, which would have fallen to Hanover, is
to be secured to Prussia on the demise of the reign-
ing Duke. The part of Hesse-Darmstadt which lies
north of Frankfort-on-the-Maine will also be claimed
by Von Bismarck. All Germany, to the north of the
Maine river and the Erz,_and Riesen mountains, will
be in the power of the King of Prussia, in whose
presence the rulers of Saxony, and the restricted
state of Hanover, the Princes of Mecklenburg and
Oldenburg, and the burgomasters of the northern
Manse towns of Hamburg and Bremen, will be but
viceroys whose very existence depends on a nod from
Berlin. All this has been achieved by the modern
strategy, the modern artillery, the modern arms of
precision, of the King of Prussia, opposed to the
ancient armaments, the time-honoured methods
of warfare on which the Austrians relied. It has
been a struggle of the old world against the
new, in which the new has triumphed. Austria
retires from Germany. ller centre is now in Hun-
gary, and she is left to carry out a programme of
her own in the East. She will escape mutilation.
She will not be called upon, probably, to forfeit a
square mile of territory. She is not the less humi-
liated. She will fade out of the modern world,
just as Prussia advances to take her place in the
foremost rank of the Powers. But there is a
strength which belongs to age, and that Austria can
claim. There is a weakness which is peculiar to
new and ill-cemented Powers. Austria is more
compact, and better knit together than this new and
mushroom empire of the King of Prussia. Were
any occasions of strife to arise which should issue
in a general convulsion, a war in which all the great
Powers of Europe should take part, it might happen
that the fabric built up with the newest mortar
would yield to the shock which would leave Austria
scatheless. Such a trial of stability we would, how-
ever, most earnestly deprecate. We are doubtful
whether Prussia has gained much, we do not believe
that Austria has lost much, by the issue of this war.
The Northern Power has mounted suddenly to a
height which makes it the envy of Europe. It
has taken into its hands the reins of those
Teutonic steeds which many a Phaeton be-
fore it has essayed vainly to drive. Its eminence
is the more dangerous as the success of its adven-
ture is feared. The Southern Power emerges from
the struggle half beaten, half triumphant. It has
checked the insolence of Italy; it has succumbed to
the needle guns of Prussia. It retires within limits
which leave it ample scope for extension, while they
secure it from envy and save it from being the butt
of nationalities. Perhaps, after all, the Emperor of
Austria and King of Hungary has as great a role to
play as the would-be Emperor of Germany and
King of Prussia, as large an opportunity of power,
with fewer elements of disaffection, and less need to
maintain armaments at a ruinous cost to the people.
TIMES.—The recent occurrences in Hyde Park
have forced one abuse on the attention of the public
for which a remedy ought to be at once provided.
Our columns have contained numerous letters de-
scribing outrages which have been committed in the
Park after dusk. As depicted by those correspon-
dents, Hyde Park at night is a scandal to the civi-
lisation of London. It appears to be worse than
Hounslow Heath in its worst times. As night comes
on, a mob of ruffians of the lowest class collect in
the Park and waylay every respectable passenger.
They are not always content with merely robbing
and annoying him, or even with simply robbing
him. They set upon him in some cases with
sticks and bludgeons, and, if he attempts to make
a defence, it is well if he escapes without some
very serious injury. In one case they attacked
a young woman, and so maltreated and insulted
her that she now lies seriously unwell. Their num-
bers are very considerable. A gentleman whose
letter we published yesterday represents himself as
being attacked by as many as 40 to 50 at once, and
these, if we may judge by other accounts, would be
only one portion of the ruffianly mob. It is abund-
antly clear that at the present moment no man can
attempt to cross the Park at night without exposing
not only his property, but his person, and even his
life, to serious danger. Even if two or three per-
sons were to cross together, they would probably be
unable to defend themselves. It is hopeless to look
for any protection from the guardians of the public
peace. The police are never in the park except by
special order, and the park-keepers are too few to
be of any service, even if they were ever to be found
abroad after nightfall. The extent of this abuse at
the present moment is no doubt due to the recent
disturbances, which have served to indicate to the
scoundrels of London how convenient a field of
operations is afforded by Hyde-park. But it is
notorious to those who live in the vicinity of the
Park that the state of things which now prevails is
merely an aggravation, and not a very great aggra-
vation, of its ordinary condition. Before the pre-
sent disturba:nces were thought of, no man who re-
garded the safety of his character or his person
would willingly trust himself to the park after dusk.
It is at all times of the year the familiar refuge of
the lowest and most disreputable classes. Especially
through the summer nights, when an encampment
on the turf is far more agreeable than a den in
Whitechapel or a kennel in St. Giles's, the Park
affords an unmolested retreat to casual paupers,
thieves, prostitutes, and even worse characters.
There they revel without the slightest interference,
and the scenes of " the casual ward," or worse, are
repeated every night in the open air in the
very heart of London. The cause of such a
scandalous state of things is equally well known.
It is principally due to the careless custom which
now prevails of simply
.locking up the Park
at nightfall, without paying . any regard to the
persons who may happen to be in it. At 10 o'clock
at this time of year the park-keepers close the gates
and go to bed. Any respectable person who hap-
pens to be late must either be content to pass the

night with thieves and ruffians, or must get out bY
climbing over the railings. But by the same proceed-
ing all the respectable world is locked out, and the
scoundrels we refer to have only to,wait until the
gates are closed in order to be sure of being un:
molested until the morning. Such a practice is most
lazy and inconsiderate. It at once inflicts a great
hardship upon respectable people, and is the greatest
boon to rogues and vagabonds. It is a scandal to
our civilisation that such proceedings as those which
prevail in Hyde Park at night should be tolerateu
anywhere. It is monstrous that they should be,
protected and facilitated in the very centre 0'
the most wealthy and prosperous part of London.
The Government will be greatly to blame if they
allow the present occasion to pass away without re'
moving this great abuse. One point of the griel:
ance might be at once remedied without the slightest
difficulty. If the gates must be shut at a certain_
hour, a means of escape ought to be provided f°l:
those who may happen to find themselves imprisonalt
Nothing is necessary for this purpose but to ad,7o
an obvious expedient, which is already in use eat
entrance to the Green Park. This consists simply
in a turnstile which will admit of passage outwarn
but not inwards. If such a device is available 0u
.
one side of Piccadilly, it is equally available on the
other. This would afford a means of escape to v.'
respectable portion of the public ; but it would, 0,
course, do nothing to rid the Park of the gangs 0'
ruffians who take shelter in it. For this purpes.e
it is essential that by some means or other-t
is not our business to indicate the precise
method--the Park should be cleared every night
before the gates are closed. Above all things l
,_1
should be lighted ; these evil-doers delight in da11.."
ness, and shun the gas-lamp, which reveals their
iniquities. If the Park were properly lighted and
efficiently patrolled, if honest men could get out ce
it without risk of breaking their necks, and if dia.
honest ruffians only lingered in it to find than':
selves dispersed and arrested, the reign of terror_
now established after nightfall would cease. Thee,e
precautions would not only put a stop to tl
scandalous scenes which now prevail througholl,
the night, but would probably furnish the bes:
protection to the public from the dangers whit
now beset them at nightfall. It is the certainty
that they can remain in the Park all night which
attracts to it so many bad characters, and if they
were certain to be driven out they would not fincl_9,
worth while to come so far from their customary
haunts. This would be a somewhat difficult testi
no doubt, but it must be undertaken. Nor is
only Hyde Park in which a similar measure ought
to be adopted. Whatever else the parks may
they should not be the chosen resort of the vg"
characters in London, After a certain hour they
now cease entirely to be places of quiet and re-
creation, and become instead the haunts of vice
and the only public quarters of London in which
~
a man cannot safely trust himself. In short, under
the present arrangements they are under no sub'
cient protection, and it is imperative that some Ito',
effectual system should be at once organised.