The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-28 00:00:00

misnomer.

And now the area of our capital is such that i
is estimated at some eighteen square miles, having
within it a population of nearly 2,500,000 !—ex-
tending northwards to Highgate, southwards to
Norwood, eastwards to Epping-forest, and west-
wards to Shepherd's-bush ! An ancient prediction
says that Hampstead is eventually to be the centre
of the metropolis. London is still, as CRUIK-
SHANK'S pencil once facetiously depicted it to be—
going out of town : the country in all directions
being yet steadily, at some points, rapidly invaded
by an army of bricks and mortar. At the different
outskirts, new streets, and squares, and terraces are
springing up perpetually. Where the occupants
come from, remains still an inscrutable mystery :
but come from some part they evidently do as
quickly as the new tenements are completed. The
mere index of names—the names of the houses and
of their inhabitants—has grown to be that ponder-
ous tome under which Mr. PUNCH and his faith-
ful attendant Toby are represented as stag-
gering in the vain attampt to lift it on to one
of the bookshelves, in the last number of our
comic contemporary. The capital is increasing in
every way—in its contents, in its extent, in its
wealth, in its populousness—in everything but its
beauty and convenience. As an illustration of this
—there is the instance of the national library at the
British Museum, considerably enlarged though the
building has been in the last few years, so incon-
veniently crowded now by its accumulated stores of
literature, that it is seriously proposed that the rest
of the collection now there should be removed else•
where, and that the British Museum should be
ultimately devoted to the purposes of a library ex-
clusively—a suggestion which, we certainly con-
ceive, it would be well before long to have actually
realised. Twenty-three years ago Dr. GREGORY
remarked—as though the idea expressed were some
impossible day-dream—that the library of the na-
tion, to be worthy of its name, ought to consist of
volumes numbering in all 600,000. The library of
the British Museum consists, altogether, of nearly
600,000 volumes—it contains at this moment, at
the lowest estimate, 560,000. And the rate of
annual increase is something quite astounding.
The average of the yearly increase is about 75,000
—for the year last past it was over that, being ex-
actly 75,067. The manuscript catalogue, now in
use in the reading-room, extends to very nearly
one thousand volumes. The new and complete
catalogue, which has been in preparation now for
the last quarter of a century, and which is under-
stood to be at length upon the very eve of its
perfected appearance, will extend to just double
that number—to as nearly as possible 2,000 folio
volumes. Seventeen of these volumes consist exclu-
sively of the catalogue of Bibles— three relate to
SHAKSPERE—tWO to ARISTOTLE—two to HOMER
—one to HORACE, and so forth. All languages,
all nations, have contributed their quota to this
treasury of literature. As a testimony of the wide
range of its completeness, it is credibly asserted
by a citizen of the United States, in every respect
a competent authority, that the British Museum
contains double the number of books published in
the transatlantic Republic, literally about double the
number of those books anywhere discoverable to-
gether in the States themselves—our American
collection numbering altogether :about 30,000 vo-
lumes. Since the magnificent new reading room
was opened, on the 18th of May, during the year,
upwards of 75,000 readers were in attendance. So
that, curiously enough, the annual number of
readers and the annual increase to the library are
now very nearly equivalent—the increase, as we
have seen, being for the last year 75,067—the
number of readers being for the last year 75,128.
Gigantic though the proportions of that superb
reading room, the room is at times inconve-
niently crowded—there is occasionally insufficient
accommodation. The number of readers will pro-
; bably, before much longer, attain a full total of
100,000—the contents of the library must in a few
short years, at the present rate of increase, reach
the wondrous sum of 1,000,000 volumes. It is a
type of the general growth of the metropolis itself,
of the increase of its material wealth, and of its
resident population. For this there must be due
provision. Hence is it becoming every day more
and more obvious, the necessity of better social,
sanitary, moral or political, of our adventuring be-
times upon bold and comprehensive measures of
metropolitan improvement.

There is 'plenty of cant in other things as well
as in religion ; and, if it must be ever most odious
where the motives to sincerity and reality are the
profoundest which can be imagined, it is yet con-
temptible everywhere. Most of all is it to be repro-
bated in those who know that they are speaking
or writing cant. The penny-a-liner, in his penny
paper, or Lord LITTLE-BRAINS, asked to take the
chair only because he is a lord, may well be only
laughed at; but writers of higher pretensions, and
speakers whose just reputation obtains them a
hearing, deserve see erer measure ; they ought not,
when better arguments fail, to shake their heads
with the look of solemn wisdom, while they re-
hearse the old song which sounds like sense to
those who kuow no better, but which they know to
have no other merit than that of having been said
or sung for the thousandth time. We need hardly
advert to politics as one of 'the most fertile subjects
of cant next to religion, and while we avoid men-
tioning the name of a writer, or a speaker, or a
journal, most of our readers will be at no loss to
recollect numerous illustrations of the cant political.
" Our glorious Constitution," for instance, has had
to do plenty of involuntary penance in this line.
The conservators of every abuse have set the
words to their melancholy music as each abuse has
been attacked, and not perhaps in vain for a time.
Negro Slavery, Test and Corporation Acts, Catholic
Disabilities, Parliamentary Reform, of course, Corn
Laws, even Church-rates, above all, open vot-
ing ; in a word, all improvements worth struggling
for, have been resisted to the tune of that favourite
air of corruptionists—" Our glorious Constitution."
It is wonderfully in vogue just now, and, strange

to say, much more with Whigs and. ]ealmerstonians
than with Tories. If representation in proportion
to population is talked of, immediately you hear a
piping behind you of—" Our gloriou s Constitution"
--perhaps also an old, new, song to is announced,
commencing, "It's balance would, you quite de-
stroy ?" till you almost exelair a impatiently,
" Bless us, we did not know our co nstitution was a
tight rope dancer !" You happen to be speculating
on the comparative advantages of a rating, or a
household, or a manhood suffrage,— round goes the
organ handle again, and you can hardly hear your-
self speak for the discordant grinding out of the ever-
lasting 'old air ; you are almost readiy to curse the
constitution itself because you can never get out of
the sound of it. You wish there were some politi-
cal policeman who could bid the nuisance " move
on." Perhaps you advert to the ballot, and venture

.0 see some reasonableness in what commends itself to

the reason of twenty million Anglo-Americans and
many millions of the freest States in. Europe, and to
our own colonies on the other side of the earth, and

for what looks like an efficient protection against the
dry rot in our own electoral independence,—forth•
with your ears are deafened with the dirge of "Our
glorious Constitution," till you are ready to wish it
really dead and buried. The thing being so
eminently reasonable there is nothing for it but to
collect the whole band of street musicians and to
give you a Dutch concert for the salvation of the
English Constitution. And, there are Statesmen,
and respectable journals, who can fall back on this
trumpery device ; who utter themselves tones of
affected sadness, and tip the hint to the crowd of
humble plaguy 'cant singers around them, who
know no better ; who, having no cue of their own,
stand ready to grind or sing as they are bid. We
may always be sure enough that arguments on the
merits of a case there are none when its supporters
resort to the everlasting cant of " Our glorious

Constitution.
At the present moment there is another piece of
cant absurdly in vogue with the argumentless. It
seems that take what test you will—population—
registered electors—real property—income tax—
other taxes—it will come out that the metropoli-
tan and manufacturing districts ought to have a very
large increase of representatives. Every device has
been exhausted to prove that acres of arable and pas-
ture, and even of moor and heath, ought to have
votes, rather than population and property gene-
rally ; yet, after all, will it look unfair to give votes
to clay or sand, rather than to human beings ? The
" Old Constitution" air has been tried, but at unavoid-
able pauses a counter song of a merrier strain was
heard, in which the words of years long gone by
are revived ; and it seems that merry England once
held that every man paying taxes called " scot and
lot" had a vote ; and the older song seemed most
popular. Hereupon has arisen the new cry, which
has been taken up by one after another; a bit of
precious cant, too, about' things as they are; and
which may have the special advantage of making
some of the stouter Radicals blush for themselves
and their constituents. The cant consists in decry.
ing the present representatives of large constituen-
cies. " See," it is said to us, " what you' have got
now for Manchester and Marylebone, for Birming-
ham, and even the City of London, for Lambeth
and the Tower Hamlets. Match these men with
the representatives of many small boroughs, which
must be wholly or partially disfranchised by your
proposed bills." And this is said with an air of
triumph, as if it were quite an axiom that we are
to be ashamed of the representatives of our large
constituencies, and that an argumentum ad vereeun-
diam had been found, to which we could not reply.
It is, however, cant and nothing else.
not bear looking at for one moment. The old
seasoned debaters may perhaps be chiefly found
amongst the class which has hitherto engrossed
the management of affairs ; but are orators altoge-
ther wanting amongst the sons of the middle
classes ? One, just now in full feather, another
rusticating for awhile, not to mention inferior
names, may answer the question. But two facts
dispose of this current cant. First, the members
for these large constituencies are the members who
vote right. They have voted on all such great
questions as we have mentioned at the beginning
of this paper, as the professed orators and states-
men who opposed them at first had to vote at last !
If we want men to do what wants to be done, not
men to entertain us with splendid orations against
what they-at length deliver splendid orations for,
then our large constituencies return the right men.
At this moment all this class of members will vote
for what the other class will soon vote for too, or be
" nowhere." Secondly, if the candidates of higher
pretensions to intellectual power and education
will but consent to vote right, these constituencies
would prefer them. Edinburgh was proud of
MACAULAY, but she would not tolerate his voting
wrong on the Corn Laws to suit his party, even to
secure his genius. But how soon and handsomely
was the offence forgiven ! Let the men of
genius and high talent in the house know
that none would our larger populations elect so
readily as themselves, if they would vote for the
people, and not for aristocratic cliques. The pre-
sent members themselves would many of them
willingly retire, if an eloquence superior to their
own could be heartily employed in the same cause.
The fault, therefore, is in the men themselves, who
are obliged to run to earth in some petty borough.
Let them become worthy of popular election, and
they might carry it by acclamation.

A Cabinet Council was held yesterday afternoon
at the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
in Downing-street. The Ministers present were—The Earl
of Derby, the Right Hon. B. Disraeli, the Lord Chancellor,
the Marquis of Salisbury, the Earl of Hardwicke, Mr.
Secretary Walpole, the Earl of Malmesbury, Sir Edward
Bulwer Lytton, General Feel, Lord Stanley, Sir John
Pakington, the Right Hon. J. W. Henley, and Lord John
Manners.

The Address in reply to the Queen's Speech will
be moved in the House of Lords by the Earl of Winchilsea
and Nottingham, and will be seconded by Lord Delamere.
The Duke of Buccleuch and the Earl of Dalkeith,
M.P., are expected to arrive at their new residence in Bel-
grave-square, on Monday next, from Dalkeith Palace, near
Edinburgh.

The Duke and Duchess of Manchester come to
town for the season on Wednesday next, the duchess, as
Mistress of the Robes, having to attend on her Majesty at
the opening of Parliament.
The Marquis of Clanricarde has arrived in town
from visiting Mr. G. G. Harcourt, M.P., and Frances,
Countess Waldegrave, at Nuneham Park, Oxfordshire.
The marchioness came to town yesterday from visiting the
Earl and Countess of Cork at Marston House, near Frome.

His Excellency the Marquis d'Azeglio and Count
Louis Corti have arrived in town from Broadlands, Hants,
where they have been visiting Viscount and Viscountess
Palmerston.

His Excellency the Prussian Minister and the
Countess J3ernstorff have returned to the Prussian Lega-
tion, Carlton House-terrace, from visiting Viscount and
Viscountess Palmerston at Broadlands.

Earl and Countess Spencer have arrived at
Naples from Rome. The noble earl and countess intend
to return home by the 9th of March.

Lord and Lady John Russell and family will
arrive at their mansion in Chesham-place to-day, from Pem-
broke Lodge, Richmond Park, for the season.
At the meeting of the Electric and International
Telegraph Company on the 4th of February, a dividend is
to be recommended for the half-year at the rate of 6 per
cent. per annum.

The Speaker of the House of Commons will give
his first full dress Parliamentary dinner on Saturday, the
12th of February, to which the Ministerial members of the
Lower House, as customary, are invited. The banquet will
be given at the right hon. gentleman's official residence, at
the Palace at "Westminster,