The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PDBLIO JOURNALS.

TIMES.—This visit of more than a thousand of
our Volunteers to the Belgian capital, and the splen-
did reception given to them, are incidents so pleasant
and natural that it is strange they should be novel.
We are now boasting a universal brotherhood of

nations ; a universal humanity ; universal principles
of free trade, philanthropy, independence, and self-
government ; and, of course, a universal science and
art. Governments are established, if not on these
maxims, yet admitting and comprehending them.
So why should there not be interchanges of national
hospitality, besides the international Exhibitions
once in ten. years—besides the miscellaneous and
aimless excursion train—besides the vagrant crowd
of summer tourists, moving in a current of its own,
and communicating only with people of its own
nation ? Upon dny principles whatever worthy to
be called principles, we ought to hail any return to
that freer intercourse of nations that we read of in

history. It is true there is, no longer one religious
communion, one metropolis of the Church, or one
language spoken by all learned men. The Crusade
no longer takes myriads through Europe, and pil-

g
rimage in s are confined to certain classes and locali-
ties. Ibis would account for the Englishman not
only retaining, but even increasing, his old insular
character. Commerce, it is true, leads to a certain
degree of intercourse for certain purposes. But it
cannot be denied that the Englishman generally has
very little to say to any foreigner, or the foreigner
to him; and, from want of habit, the very topics
on which they might " fraternize " are only touched
on to become bars of separation. Our clergy and
our lawyers are utterly alien to those of any other
country. Our diplomatists are a peculiar class, and
socially a caste. There is, then, a want, which it
may take ages to satisfy, but which it is something
to feel and recognise. The feeling finds its vent where
it can, and one of the first results of the Volunteer
movement has been to discover chat a few hundred
men can go as well to a neighbouring capitalasthey can
to Brighton, and that, while a run to the coast is
only a day's outing, there is a much higher meaning
in the international visit. There is something really
expressed and actually done in it. When our
Volunteers find themselves enthusiastically received
and magnificently feted by the authorities of a
foreign capital and by brothers in arms, and when
they find themselves taking part in the national
trials of skill, they must feel that it is a matter of
European and world-wide import. '.They have not
taken their uniform, submitted to drill and parade,
and devoted precious time to the irksome toil simply
and solely to be prepared to defend our shores and
cities from the supposed invader, when he comes.
They are taking a part in the history of the world,
and defending not only a country, but principles
and a cause. This, too, is the ground on which
they are exchanging civilities and pledges with their
foreign hosts. Our Volunteers, it seems, were taken
by surprise. " They had no idea it would be this
sort of thing," and that they were to be welc3med
at once as important personages and bosom friends.
They had hoped to make a passable display, just to
pass muster, to see as well as be seen, and to re-
ceive indulgence, if not kindness. They find them-
selves, on the contrary, the heroes of a city, of a
populace, of a nation, of an army, of a Court, each
vying for precedence in giving them due honour.
When they are released from the review they are
seized one by one and carried about the city by
volunteer interpreters, whose 4uccess, we hope,
has been equal to their kindness. But, in the midst
of an ovation which modesty already suggests to be
hardly deserved, there occurs the pai▪
nful thought
that it is impossible to make a return. There is
every possible difficulty in the bare imagination of
such a thing. There is not even any equivalent
force to that of our Volunteers. Could that difficulty
be got over, and could there be found or created a
proper representation of Belgian patri▪
otism to make
the return visit, then the heart sickens at the bare
idea of London being its scene. Our Court, our Go-
vernment, our Horse Guards, and our "City" move
too much in ways of their own for us ever to hope
that they will join so harmoniously to entertain or
to review the foreign visitors. Where are the festi-
vities to be given that shall adequately return those
described in the " historic halls" where was heard
afar the first cannon of Waterloo ? Even Hyde
Park, or the Parade in St. James's, would not bear
comparison, for the purpose, with the Park at Brus-
sels, where, on an elevated site and under a clear
sky, are combined a deep grove with broad prome-
nades, surrounded by spacious thoroughfares and
magnificent public buildings. We do, indeed, pity
from our hearts the chiefs of this expedition if they
hold themselves bound to make an adequate return,
and are racking their invention for place, means,
persons, and things. We presume there is a way to
do it, but we don't see it yet; and when it comes,
the most moderate success will be a far greater triumph
than the British progress to Brussels. But such an,
occasion, we have observed, must open the eyes and
the heart of the Volunteer to something beyond the
safety of his own shores. It suggests that the politi-
cal position of a country must ever depend very much
indeed on the temper and resolution of the people
themselves. Even if a compaiatively small people
are resolved to be independent, and to prefer an
honourable independence to any advantages they
might gain by a truckling policy or by avoiding
sacrifices, they stand a fair chance of success. It is
quite unnecessary to regard Belgium as the most
apposite instance of this moral, for the truth is Eng-
land herself is quite as apposite. In the face of a
good many conquests recorded by history, it is ridi-
culous to maintain that England is a difficult coun-
try to invade and to conquer. The difficulty, or
rather the impossibility, consists in the fact that the
English are ready to fight to the last in defence of
their soil ; that they show this by a large army and
navy maintained without conscription, by a Militia
easily embodied when wanted, and by a large force of
Volunteers. The world knows that whoever invades
these isles or challenges us on any other ground will at
least have to pay man for man, and sacrifices far be-
yond common treasuries. Every people that is resolved
to have life for life, and only to be conquered at a
cost utterly beyond the worth of the acquisition, is
practically safe. This is our safety. It has for
many years been a greater security than the Alpine
passes for the independence of Switzerland, and it
is the best security of the Belgians. In private life,
the powerful and the aggressive abstain from en-
counters and quarrels with smaller and weaker men,
if they know that, whatever the chance of final suc-
cess, they would have to suffer a long interval of
pain, misery, and disquiet. No body would like a
festering sore in his side, even if he were sure that
it would one day be healed by the slow extinction
of the cause. Of course, that is not an agreeable
prospect for the weaker members of either the public
or the private community; but, -if we understand
rightly such demonstrations as the visit of our
Volunteers to Brussels, the two peoples concerned
in it are prepared for the stakes. They are resolved
to be independent or to die, for it is this, and not
the mere form of a Constitution or a Government,
that makes a nation and a people.
HERALD. —The ancient saying that half the world
knows not how the other half lives is likely to be
quoted a good many times before we are tired of its
practical wisdom. And not that only, but also the
other proverb, which consoles us with an assurance
that rogues are generally fools. In every great and
populous city, of course, where riches seem to burst
through the walls and windows into the streets,
there are birds of prey, more or less organised into
communities, whose lives are obscure, who exist in
the light of dark lanterns, whose ostensible voca-
tions only serve to conceal the actual nature of their
dealings. It has been a favourite artifice of romance
writers of the lower order to depict the haunts and
homes of felons, and especially of those master
criminals, the receivers of stolen goods, whose cellars
and attics are full of wealth, whose shipments to the
colonies are vast, who buy property at a tenth of its
value, whose furnaces burn by day and by night, and
who keep the thieves poor while they fatten upon
their guilt. We have no desire to prejudge the charge
against Mr. Moses Moses, of Houndsditch, who is
under remand for having in his possession an ex-
traordinary number of articles, evidently pilfered,
but his character is not one to be damaged, since lie
has been a convict and a ticket-of-leave man, so
that any particular tenderness about , his personal
feelings might be wasted. He appears, however, in
addition to being a "fence," to be a simpleton also.
A mouse might as well have invited a cat upon a
visit, as he to have solicited an inspection of his pre-
mises by a City detective. Having accused two men,
now discharged from custody, of robbing him, he
allowed the officers to examine his premises in Black-
horse-yard, Aldgate, and there they hit upon the
secret of a great local mystery. The dwelling bad
a squalid exterior ; but within it was a small Palace
of Aladdin. A trinket dropped upon the floor ; then
were discovered gold brooches, ear-rings, and lockets
in profusion. Next, behind tons of rags, holes in
walls, 'niches of brickwork, a massive service of sil-
ver plate, and Mr. Moses Moses had brought the
police, by his own act and deed, within scent of this
damnifying discovery ! Valtiable widths of Brus-
'sels carpets, sets of new harness, saddles of the cost-
liest description, gold watches and chains of recent
make, and other valuables, turned up as if by sur-
prise, and the lucky officers thought that they might
as well get an inkling of what was at their prisoner's
private residence. Thither, accordingly, they pro-
ceeded. It was a perfect treasury. There were gold
watches, chains, necklets, bracelets, studs, bales of
costly cloth, ivory tusks, sets of chessmen—enough
to load eight cabs. It will be remembered that, a
few weeks ago, a similar den was discovered, like-
wise accidentally, in the Waterloo-road. We
It how many of them remain undetected. tis a
disagreeable fact that in both instances the exposure
has been 'due less to police supervision than to for-

1.. ---'

tuitous circumstances. li the thieves of London hal

not these markets ready at hand wherein to trade
the constant danger to property would be far less •
serious. They themselves incur all possible risks ;
they are vigilantly watched ; they are followed and
tracked, and have no longer a class of men to deal
with who can " wink hard" for a bribe. Yet their
industry flourishes ; and although the malefactors
generally linger out miserable lives upon precarious
gains, which are reduced to nullities in the course
of their bargains with the receivers, these latter
amass fortunes, and contribute only in a slight pro-
portion to the number of convictions at the sessions.
It was calculated by Mr. Colquhoun that a million
and a half's worth of property is:stolen in London
every year, and that there are 3,000 professional
receivers, not, to speak of rogues in the pawnbrok-
ing trade. We must always accept such estimate°,
with reserve. They are difficult to arrive at and
impossible to substantiate. Still, they at least sug-
gest the amount of crime perpetrated—and they do
more. They point to the extreme perplexity which
must beset the police when they endeavour to track
the disposal of stolen goods. Plate can be melted ;
trade marks can be obliterated ; the numbers 00
watchcases can be effaced ; and, as a rule, these
accumulations of valuables are periodically exported
to the colonies. How irksome the task of watching
where every stolen article goes. We have about
7,000 police in the metropolis to keep guard over
about half a million of houses. Say what we will
they cannot be turning on the hull's eight light for
ever over a hundred square miles of densely-built
territory, upon 8,000 reputed thieves, and nobody
knows how many thieves' agents, upon every door
and window of every alley, street, and square for
15 miles in a circle around Charing-cross. It is
true that they often get a hint and a scent, and
mark a special locality with a suspicion, and thus
reach to the bottom of a criminal mystery ; butthel
would be more frequently baffled than they are were
it not for the spontaneousoo-operation of the public/
of servants, of children, and, in a peculiar degree, 01
cabmen. How else could they, under the best de-
vised system, understand the character of ever);
house in dense city labyrinths, in long reticulate('
suburban lanes, in lonely and in crowded neigh'
bourhoods, where things wear an aspect of secrecy
which may turn out to signify nothing, or where
they seem so aboveboard as to delude the most
critical nature ? What becomes of all the stolen
bank notes? They are stopped, and never'
theless they are turned into money on the
Continent and in America. The traffic has been
elevated into a regular system. What of the enor-
mous quantity of silks and other fabrics purloinel,
from vans and carts loading or unloading in the City
The houses of Mr. Moses Moses, in Houndsditch
and Gravel-lane, enlighten us a little on this subject'
But the important fact is that the police, while they
know the thieves, do not known the receivers. Thor,
can pick out the men they suspect of being concerned
in robberies, and oftener than not are right ; it 1s
comparatively rare, however, that they lay hold t
Fagin, who trains the young criminal, or Rude'
who buys, as an egregious bargain, the prodnee
his felony. We cannot but think that here is a de.'
partment of police business which has, to a °cern°
extent, been neglected, and the remark may apPel
justifiable if we remember how seldom the officers
justice strike upon the right trail to the caverns at
dens of metropolitan brigandage. In' former Yee':,
nothing was more difficult than to ensure a convictio"
against the miscreants who bought bandanas of young
pickpockets in Field-lane. They flaunted their stolen
stock in the light of day and defied investigation:
And, in our own days, does any one believe that
gold-dust, bank, or jewellery burglary is perpetrate;
without a clear scheme being laid beforehand of perpetrate;
way in which the plunder is to be disposed of, Of ttee
crucible for the melting of gold and silver, and 0,
1 workmen who are to " re-christen " the watches?
Many a boat steals by night down the Thames, be-
tween the bridges, carrying freights of theft to ware
houses perfectly well known to the moonlight fr%
ternity, and many a market cart of simply inneceu.",
appearance is conveying, under mountains of es',
bage and carrots, such treasures as Mr. Silas
expected to find in Mr. Boffin's dustheap•
would be unreasonable and unjust to blame the
constabulary, who cannot be expected to outTV
although it is their professional duty to attempt 1,•„'
all other men in vigilance and subtlety ; becan
habitual crime is in itself a profession, is fell 1,1
secrets and surprises, has a language of its 0101_
for ever studying new devices, is devious and des' "0
rous beyond conception, commands an organisacus,
of the most complicated character, has its age",l4
and, if we may so express it, its police, and Pa,,
trained itself into a dark, elaborate, stealthy syste
which may well be expected .to defeat, more or IfieTi't
the efforts of the best-trained detective body.
when a discovery is made, then we look for the at:,o
plication of that principle of the law which declar°e
that the receiver is worse than the thief-101;
since he, is the instigator, the schoolmaster, "f
tempter of the criminal, who enjoys four-fifths ,`:0
his wicked gains, who has him in his power, him
makes a slave of him, who goads and drives !nt
from one act of guilt to another. It is no easY
to ferret out these scoundrels in their hauntstW""o•
they live in such confidence as to invite the insp,viip
tion of City detectives ; yet, when they do 037 to
themselves, in the interest of society they °ugh
be memorable examples.
•