The Sun.
London, England, 1866-07-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

" THE LONDON REVIEW" ON SLANG.—In Locke's
Essay on the Human Understanding, the author de-
votes two chapters to the abuse of words. The first
and most palpable abuse of words, he says, in which
they are used without clear and distinct ideas ; the
second, when we are so inconstant and unsteady
in the application of them, that we sometimes use
them to convey one idea, sometimes another.
These definitions may be said to embrace the chief
characteristics of that free and easy phraseology
which pervades our modern English, to a greater
extent perhaps than any other language that has
ever found utterance, and which we describe by a
word whose derivation is uncertain and whose trans-
lation is impossible. For " slang," as understood to
mean the conventional expressions of a class or oc-
cupation, we may find a proper equivalent in French
or German; but the grotesque, and often inconsis-
tent idioms by which the rising generation are accus-
tomed to convey their ideas to each other—not only
in school and at college—not only in the hunting-
field and billiard-room, but in the conversation of
daily life and of polite society, represent an English
peculiarity which can only be described by an Eng-
lish name. It is in vain that mammascaution their
daughters against these improprieties of speech. It
is in vain that old gentlemen of the Georgian era
lament the corruption of their native tongue. The
use of slang is daily becoming more general. The
significance of a dialect, formerly adopted by sport-
ing men alone, is now recognised in the transaction
of ordinary business. Epithets which would have
been utterly unintelligible to our grandfathers are
now introduced in the gravest colloquy, and may be
even found in our dictidnaries. A few of the old
school still protest against the innovation. "By a
fast man I presume you mean a loose one," said the
late Sir Robert Inglis, in good-humoured irony to
some one who was describing a rake. We believe it
was the pcet Rogers who declared that to speak
of a " good fellow" was to utter an anomaly,
because the terms were incompatible. In his
younger days the word " fellow" was chiefly used to
express contempt. Such objections seem pedantic
indeed in 1866. The cause of the modifications
which our familiar vocabulary has undergone during
the last twenty years is not difficult to understand.

Without for an instant comparing the style of mo-
dern English authors with that of their predecessors,
which would be simply begging the question, it must
be evident to every one that far more English has
been read and written within that period than in
any previous period of similar extent. Our lan-
guage is by no means a fertile one, and there is a
growing impatience of words and phrases which,
with the enormous increase of our light literature,
have become so hackneyed that their very appear-
ance is suggestive of a platitude. It is no wonder
then that novelists, at all events, are tempted to
avail themselves of curt and significant synonyms,
which, while they are thoroughly understood
by the million, have a certain freshness in print
that not unfrequently passes for originality. The
origin of slang may, in a great measure, be traced
to a growing dislike of conventionalities, and that
phase of insincerity which takes the form of polite
utterance. When we hear one man say of another
that he is a very worthy person, we may put our
own construction on the remark ; but if he calls him
a " brick," we feel sure that the eulogy is sincere.
In the days of Sir George Beaumont an amateur
would have described the exquisite chromatic har-
monies of a picture. In the language of a modern
studio it would be " a stunning bit of colour."
Among the various objections which have been
urged against the use of slang is that it often
falsifies the real meaning of a word, and
certainly such expressions as " awfully kind,"
"a jolly bad cold," or " no end of a muff,"
would be exceedingly difficult to translate. How
utterly inadequate such an idiom as prendre la clef
des champs is to express our British notion of cutting
one's stick I But it is, after all, only a temporary
misadoption of the Queen's English which the use
of slang permits. In the days of Steele and Addi-
son, a handsome, dark-complexioned man was styled
a " pretty black gentleman." In Mr. Canning's time,
a good joke was considered "monstrous killing."
But the original value or significance of these words
has not abated a tittle in consequence of this per-
verted application. To sporting phraseology we
are indebted for many instances of modern slang.
" Hedging" a matter, " backing" a man, " walking
over" at elections, an 3, of course, Lord Palmer-
.ston's " judicious bottle-holding," are all derived
from this source. From the cricket-rield we get
" bowled out" and " stumped ;" but the former
expression seems to indicate the discovery of some
misdeameanour rather than a loss of office, while
the latter may be taken to mean not so
much a complete failure as a temporary check.
Slang terms of approbation come from various
sources. A man at the top of his profession is
called A 1. This, with the appellation of "clipper,"
savours evidently of salt water. Somehow or other,
all those which are borrowed from railway transit

THE " SPECTATOR" ON THE " SATURDAY RE-
VIEW'S" DIATRIBE ON LORD RIISSELL.--The Satur-
day Review of last week wrote, what is very
unusual with it, an article on Lord Russell which
was not merely petty and spiteful, but petty and
spiteful without that amount of common candour
and common sense with which men of the world
usually season their bitterest attacks, since they
know that, except by the help of such candour and
sense, they fail to obtain an attentive bearing even
for their most telling sarcasms. It is not because
we believe that this very savage and yet rather
feeble attack on Lord Russell will get much serious
consideration from the public that we wish to say a
few words in answer to it on a statesman who has
earned so many great claims on our gratitude, in
spite of the serious political blunders of which he
has undoubtedly been guilty. But such an attack
as this—so furious and so blind—reminds us of the
public duty of showing our greater statesmen some
gratitude while they live, and not reserving it alto-
gether for their obituaries. If the feeble-forcible
invective of the Saturday Review had been published
on occasion of Lord Russell's death, all England
would have been indignant. We cannot see why
it should be less resented because it happens to
appear at a moment when the subject of it is still
capable of feeling pain from the literary vitriol-
thrower, than it would be if the burning and blind-
ing fluid had been sprinkled over a corpse. When
a paper of high culture, ability, and influence writes
of such a man as Lord Russell that it is
almost true to say of him that he touched nothing
which he did not disfigure—that is what is con-
veyed, we suppose, by the assertion that " the re-
verse" of the saying " Niltil tetigit quod non orna-
vit" is almost true of Lord Russell—that " finding
Liberalism all but marble, he has left it mire and
clay,"—that he has been " cold, dictatorial," " dull,
unsympathetic, and pompous" as a statesman, the
last epithet at least being singularly ill chosen for
the curt, crusty, acute style of Lord Russell's states-
manship—perhaps the Saturday Review meant a
trifle priggish, which is a very different thing, and
much less hollow—that his career has been "an
ample succession of occasions for failure, occasion,
which he has made the most of,"—finally, that " he
has lived longer than the ordinary age of man only
to discredit principles and break up associations
which it had taken two centuries of struggle and
difficulty to organise"—when such a paper as the
Saturday Review writes thus of a statesman like
Lord Russell it is time, we think, for those who do
not wish to see public gratitude quite out of date to
say something of the greater aspects of Lord Rus-
sell's political life, and prove that we see through
the petty malice of such a criticism as this by some-
thing more than contemptuous silence. When the
" Saturday Reviewer" restrains his positive hatred
for a moment to contrast Lord Russell unfavour-
ably with his " great (chiefly because successful)
predecessor," he no doubt reflects better the imme-
diate impression of the public mind than by
all this pseudo-epigrammatic vituperation. No
doubt, in some great qualities, Lord Russell was
Lord Paimerston's inferior. He was his inferior
in personal generosity as a party leader. He
was his inferior; we- think, in the kind
of pluck which is needful to stem the tide of tem-
porary unpopularity and disgust. Lord Russell
has always had a tendency to turn with a turn-
ing tide. He would not have gone to Compiegne
like Lord Palmerston, at the very time when he had
fallen from power in consequence of too close an
adhesion to the policy of the Emperor of the French.
He gave voice to the first childish burst of rage
against the Papal agression in 1850, and he sank
his voice again with the sinking voice of the public,
directly he was aware that the spasm was over. He
deserted his colleagues in 1855 at the first breath of
popular rage against the mal-administration of the
army in the Crimea ; he burst forth with the first
notes of the explosion of popular indignation against
Russia for her treatment of Poland in 1863, and col-
lapsed when he found that the public opinion would
not sustain him in anything more than an angry
speech ; he threatened as all England was threatening
when Austria and Prussia broke faith with Den-
mark in 1864, and humiliated himself as all Eng-
land humiliated herself when it appeared that we
should have to go to war alone for Denmark or not
at all. In all these instances, and in the tendency
which they all exhibit to follow rather than to
guide popular feeling, to recede with it as well as
to advance with it, no doubt Lord Russell has

shown himself Lord Palmerston's inferior.

has shown less tenacity of individual judgment
whenever there has been any danger of a temporary
breach between his own views ,and those of the
public. But admit these two points of real inferio-
rity to Lord Palmerston, inferiority in personal ge-
nerosity as a party leader, and in tenacity of indi-
vidual judgment when public opinion seemed to
turn against him, and yet we do not doubt for a
moment, we should question whether any compe-
tent and impartial critic could doubt, that Lord
Russell's name as a statesman will rank far higher
with the future historians of our time than Lord

Palmerston's. The latter no doubt died at the

climax of his popularity, while Lord Russell has
long culminated, and long been on the decline. But
compare the substantial achievements of the two

statesmen, nay, compare even their political cha-
racters apart from their achievements, and it is
scarcely possible to hesitate for a moment as to
which of the two weighs the heavier in English his-
tory. Lord Palmerston's personal achievements are
at most three—his defeat of the French policy in
Syria in 1840, of the Russian policy in Tur-
key in 1853, and the alliance with the Ern.

peior of the French by the help of which the last

success was achieved. There is no doubt that the
Dano-German fiasco in 1864 was as much due to
Lord Palmerston as to Lord Russell. The one
talked as big in the House of Commons—the
" Cambyses' vein," Mr. Disraeli called it--as the
other wrote in his despatches. But the diplomatic
triumph over the French policy for Italy in
1860 was certainly due more to Lord John Russell
than to Lord Palmerston. No Foreign Minister
was ever better abused than he during that
important year, andl though cordially sup-
ported by his chief, the Prime Minister, all the
most important despatches of that period were un-
mistakably due to Lord John Russell's keen sym-
pathy with the popular Italian cause. And for the
American foreign policy of the Liberal Government
during the difficult and dangerous time of the civil
war, Lord Russell was far more responsible than
Lord Palmerston. It was his thorough sympathy
with the freemen of the North that alone averted

a serious quarrel between England and the United

States, at a time when Lord Palmerston took no
pains to conceal that all his private sympathies were
with the Confederates. If the achievements of the
two men were estimated only by thesuccess of their
foreign policy, we should say that Lord Russell's,
in spite of the Polish and German fiascos, had been
as successful, if not more fruitful of permanently
great results, as Lord Palmerston's. The " meddle-
and-muddle" policy was more or less common t°,
both. But in saving Italy from Confederation and
subservience to France, and in saving England from
a war with the Free States of America, Lord Rus-
sell has achieved more than will balance Lord
Palmerston's political successes in Syria, in Turkey'
in Greece. And the reason is that Lord Russell's
successes were founded on a more tenacious and in-
tense sympathy with the cause of popular self-go-
vernment than Lord Palmerston's. The questions,
of Syria and Turkey were questions of a traditiona
foreign policy, those of Italy and America were
questions of constitutional principle. There was 3
wire of popular creed at the bottom of Lord Rus-
sell's most successful Foreign-office achievements
which was wanting in Lord Palmerston's, whose
creed was never half so strongly and vividly defined,
or based on strong genuine principle, as Lord This'
sell's.
THE " EXAMINER " ON THE BALLOT.-A
rity of the new Parliament, that directed provisions
against bribery to be introduced into a Bill which it
did not intend to pass, has with perfect consistency
rejected Mr. H. Berkeley's proposal to adopt the
vote by ballot in default of successful legislative
measures for the repression of corrupt practices.
Having charged a sinking ship with their endeavours
for purity of election, they opposed the only effec-
tual means for the object. Yet there is a vague
desire for some check to corruption, not from an{
great dislike to the thing itself, but from its effect
upon the expenses of elections, which are becoming
intolerably heavy, and such as few purses can bear;
But much as these expenses are grudged, grudgedL
incomparably more is the freedom of choice which
the Ballot would give to the elector. That is au,
emancipation. which will be strenuously resisted
under cover of claptraps about British manliness
and spirit. The short answer to the objection that
the Ballot is un-English is, that bribery and intimi-
dation are vices peculiarly English, requiring a,n Un'
English corrective. The practice of clubs is cited, but
we prefer taking the bull by the horns, and meeting
the opprobrium of the un-English, whatever it may
be, with the incomparably more real 313 U
great opprobrium of the offences to be deal with.
We have repeatedly shown in this journal that
every moral objection made to secret voting applies
with greater force to open voting. The elector
bribed or intimidated lies in his suffrage, and plays
the hypocrite in pretences in conformity with tne
purchased or compelled vote. In the ballot there,
would be this difference in the man's conduct, OP
he would give the honest vote, which is what the
public wants, and the dissimulation would only
baulk the corrupter. But it would only be on We
first establishment of the ballot that the falsities
would remain with a difference. Soon no one
would think of asking questions about the vote, or
of hearing statements about it. The elector who
said he voted for a candidate would not be muchbelieved by that candidate, but he would oe,
thoroughly believed by the opposing candidate, an
perhaps requited accordingly. Blabbing would he,
found in every way exceedingly detrimental. Ask
would
me no questions and I will tell you no lies, wou,'
be the tacit understanding. The admirers of tue,
w
present system, who swallow its camel of deceit and
strain at the gnat there might be in the ballot, sho,,,
be challenged to state how much truth and honesty
are to be found in a contested election of average
debauchery. How much of the professions are
false, how much of the opinions are feigned, ho
many of the suffrages delivered against the eon'
science, verdicts as it were against the evidence,;
The most specious argument against the Ballot, and
yet flimsy enough, is the assumption that the fran-
chise is a trust, the faithful discharge of which is t°
be secured by publicity. But there lies the petit°
principii. If the franchise is a trust, the method 0:,
its discharge must be made consistent with its end'
and if publicity would be adverse to the honest per"
formance, public it .should not be. The means t°
the end are to be considered, and if publicity
intro-
duces the sway of the foul influences, publicity is t°
be shunned. It has its virtues and transcendent
virtues for many occasions, but here it counteracts
its object. If the object were to exercise voters In
the heroic virtues, and train them for martyrdoral
the existing system would not be ill suited to its
purposes. And, as we have often asked, where
the responsibility for the faithful discharge of thIS
same trust ? Who is ever called to account for 5
bad vote? nay, wbo is entitled to say that the vote
is bad? Opinion, fudge. Opinion does not bear
on Jenkins, who has sold his vote for £2O ; or 00
Thomson, who has given it to escape an ejection or
the loss of custom. The most corrupt elector seeks
shelter against opprobrium in the opinion of his own
class. The opinion ascendant at the Man in the
Moon is the opinion for him, and he needs no othPri;
If there had been the force in public opinion which
has been attributed to it, the electoral vices you'id
have been in course of steady abatement, just°
of which they are confessedly on the increase'
We do not much care to dispute the nature of t 13,1
franchise. If it be held to be a trust, we contend
that it must be discharged in the way conducive to
_
the free and honest choice. But we think the true:
analogy is the juror's duty, which is obligatory an,
0
onerous.- The suffrage should be, as the juryinall
verdict, delivered according to a conviction of ~,
merits, without a care or a thought of praise 0'
blame for the performance of a strict public dtitt,
And it was well remarked by Captain Vivian, %%-
the debate on Mr. Berkeley's motion, that thong,:
the decisions of jurymen collectively are given re
public, the judgments, or votes as it were, of tn
individuals remain secret. The declaration of tw"
nia
poll is analogous to the verdict, and there sho---0
be no prying beyond it. We should see very straT,bct
verdicts if the deliberations of juries were submit
to the supervision of the public. Mr. Berkeleih
annual motion must try nobody's patience so roue:
as his own, but his patience is equal to his ability'
Year after year he forcibly recals attention to the
few and simple truths that justify a measure wlllc,
is thus being steadily put through the ordeal of I°l3''
opposition imposed in this country upon all st!gi,..
gestions of change, and ultimately rewarded With
success.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

NORWICH-SATURDAY.

There was a fair supply of wheat at this market to-del
and more business transpired than of late at a reduction 11)1
about is per qr. upon all qualities. Not much doing
0,
other articles. The reports made concerning the c° t,
crops are still favourable, and with fine weather partial 61
ting will commence in about a fortnight. -tto
White wheat (weighing 641 b), 558 to 575; old red al
weighing 651 b), 51s to 538 ; new red ditto weighjng
601 b to 631 b), 51s to 525; best making barley weigu„%),
521 b to 531 b), 36s to 38s ; runs ditto (weighing 511 to 5,,,,: 6
34s to 365; distilling ditto (weighing 501 b to 521 b), 316$
(niaple)i
32s ; oats, 24s to 26s ; beans, b7s to 39s ; peas
to 38s per qr. Flour, 37s 6d per sack.

LEICESTER—SATURDAY. t to
Our corn market was sparingly supplied with whoa
day, and only a small business was done at ls per qr. ben
late rates. The quantity of barley shown was exceedi
small, and prices were unchanged. Oats were in 070
supply, and the tone of the demand was healthy, at .•
rates. There were few samples of beans on offer, and -
treme rates were realised.
New white wheat, 56s to 61s ; new red, 52a to 570 ; of
white, 55s to 60s ; old red, 50s to 56s per 36 stone. 13631 g
ley, for malting, 35s to 40s per qr. ; grinding, 30s to 24
per 30 stone. Oats, old, —s to —s ; new, 27s to 33s Pera,
stone. Beans, old, 52s to 54s ; new, 48s to 51a per 38 stun
Fine flour, 44s ; seconds, 38s to 40s per 20 stone.

YORK—SATURDAY.
We had a seasonable supply of wheat at market to-%
and only a few samples changed hands at a decline of f'3l:o
is per qr. In barley scarcely anything doing, and pr''iv
were similar to those of last week. There was a sclo
show of oats, which moved off at fully late prices.
demand for beau was firm, and prices had an upo3"
tendency. 6
New white wheat, 54s to 60s ; new red, 50s to 54s Perm,
stone. Barley, for malting, 32s to 34s per qr. ; grinal%
32s to 34s per 30 stone. Oats, new, 28s to 30s per 24 stol4.
Beans, new, 50s to 52s per 38 stone. Malt, 66$ to °
Flour, 38s to 40s Der sack of 2801bs.

Births.
ro•
CURE- On the 19th inst., at Abbott's Boding, Onger, - g
Laurence Capel Cure, of a daughter.
C URWEN —On the 20th inst. at 11, Hollies-street,Cavon-
square, the wife of E. Curwen, Esq., of a son.
GLENNIE —On the 20th inst., a
at Chandos-street,
square, the wife of W. R. Glennie, Esq., of son.

Marriages.
HIEDE —HENDERSON —On the 19th inst., at the
church of Great Stanmore, Commander E. T. P-1- 0
R.N., to Louisa, only daughter of D. G. lienderSo
Esq. Sg/
Tit HERNE —PERCEVAL —On the 19th inst., at St. i-re°34.c' 31.
Hanover-square, Goring Apsley, yougest bee tlill
Treherne, Esq., M.P., to Marie Jane Kathleen,
daughter of Philip Perceval, Esq.
Deaths. sh eit
BAnnErr—On the 16th inst., Seaton Carew, Der.-
Jeremiah Barrett e
20th, of
inst Birgham, aged 72. Thsepil
CAPE —On th, mi
Birdbrook, the Rev. '—
Cape, aged 72. 10*
JOHNSON—On the 15th inst., Joseph Johnson, of APP
Lincolnshire, aged 69.
riE4
MORRIS —On the 19th inst., at Blackheath, George -kf —or
Esq., of Royal-crescent, Notting-hill, aged 54.
MARSHALL—On the 19th inst., at 6, Marine-tell-3°e'
Brighton, Mrs. Mary Marshall, aged 80.

0.04
London : Printed and Published byWILLIAMA Eli
of No. 112, Strand, Painter. at Tin SUN °ace, No.
of
ot
Strand, in the Precinct of, the Savoy.qin the cottiog
MiddleleSerMonday, July 23, 1366.

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