The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-18 00:00:00

Commence at 7 o'clocic.

CANTERBUR V HALL CONCERTS.-
v EVERY EVENING.—The 3tusic of Verdi's Opera 01
MACBETH (now first made public in England at these Con.
certs).

In a few days will be produced a Selection from Meyer-
beer's new opera of DINORAH.
Comic Vocalists —Messrs. tleorge Ho !son (the Irish Come-
dian and Mimic), W.'l'. Critchfield, and E. W. Mackney.
Several interesting Pictures arc added to the Fine Arts
Gallery. The suite of Halls have been re-decorated and
beautified, and constitute one of the most unique and brilliant
sights of the metropolis.

THE WEATHER.—Svx OFFICE, OCTOBER 18.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
65—highest since noon yesterday.
51--lowest this morning and during the night.
57—this day at noon.

BAROMETEr.-29.98.
WIND, Easterly; light, with dull weather.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Trris Day.—Morning, sh. 27m.—Afternoon, sh. 52m.
To-Mmutow-Morning, 6h. 21m.—Afternoon, 6h. 55m.

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•

THE SUN.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1859.

Another Cabinet Council, it will be seen, was
held yesterday. Ministers are beginning to bestir
themselves. They numbered " nine " at the close
of last week, and now, at the beginning of this
week, " eleven " out of the Sixteen assembled to-
gether round the council board. The last stragglers
are dropping in, just as the QUEEN and her Court
are reaching Windsor Castle. Michaelmas has
passed, though the term of that ilk has not yet
commenced. The lawyers may yet, for the most
part, be scattered, for we are still but in the midst
of October—but the Ministers of the Crown, the
great State drudges in this community, the normal
state of which really appears to be drudgery, are
already girding up their loins for the work before
them, or at any rate (which is so far a concession on
their part), affect to be doing so. Several, of course,
out of the Sixteen have been flitting to and
fro, at intervals, about the purlieus of Downing-
street during the lapse of the two months which
have already elapsed since the prorogation of Par-
liament. The business of the country does not
admit of any long vacation (save in name) for those
intrusted nominally by the Crown, but virtually by
the Legislature, with the responsibilities of Admini-
stration. The Prime Minister, particularly when
it happens, as it does at the present moment, that
he has no less than fifteen colleagues to look after
and to keep in harmony one with another in spite
of the notorious fact of the vast majority of their
opinions being diametrically antagonistic —the
Prime Minister, for one, can obviously never by any
chance whatever have what is called an easy time
of it. Go, whithersoever he may—the silver tissue
papers of those plaguey telegrams flock after him
pertinaciously. His messengers are continually
on the move with those radiant green morocco
boxes, or those dingy brown leather bags like for-
gotten valises dropped, by travellers of the last c-:n-
-tury—all of them (bags and boxes) stuffed to reple-
tion with papers old and new, despatches and
memoranda, looked at (which is bad enough), or
(which is worse) still to be looked at. At any age,
" never-ending still-beginning," toil like this
would be extraordinary to think of—but,
at seventy-five ! Why a Premier of seventy-
five, even though he be inspirited by the
constitutional vivacity of Lord PALM ERSTON-,
can have left to him, in the thick of his Ministerial
responsibilities, but small space for even a momen-
tary idea of leisure.

Remembering, ag tin, the more direct responsibi-
lities devolving upon each of the fifteen colleagues
and superbordinates of the First Lord of the
Treasury, and bearing in mind how it is that the
duties are distributed among those fifteen heads of
the separate departments, we can readily appre-
ciate how few among them can have oppor-
tunities, however sparsely scattered, for anything
like real repose from the anxieties and drudgeries
of administration. The Chancellor of the Exche-
quer, for example, is more or less incessantly kept
with his faculties upon the strain, by reason of the
most ingenious among his numerous fiscal and
financial arrangements being, by the nature of
things, perpetually liable, we might almost say
Perpetually certain, to become complicated. The
Foreign Secretary has to keep well in hand the
delicate and continually shifting threads of diplo-
macy, and to keep them one and all if possible
—and this in the midst of the whirl of the world's
events--a like from snapping and from entangle-
The First Lord of the Admiralty has to
remain ever vigilantly upon the watch, with his
weather ei e open, upon all the fleets and squadrons,
upon all the dockyards, upon all the naval stations,
upon ail ta,, seas, upon all quarters of the globe,
looking well to the national defences not only along
our iron-bound coasts, but along those also of
all our rest and remote colonies, while at the
saw timo c onscious that his means must be econo-
mised as Iv Il as may be in this rigorous age of re-
trenchment As for the Colonial Secretary, even
with the aid of the Post-office programme, giving

went.