The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON,- - MONDAY EVENING, APRIL I, MI.

And then mere knowledge is worth something.
We all like to know the facts revealed to us by a
census, especially in comparison with those fur-
nished by each that has preceded it ; a piece of
pleasant information to talk over by our fire sides
and at the tea table. Even our cooks and nurse-
maids would not be quite uninterested in being told
how many of their professions minister to the
daily comfort of the older and younger branches
of the family ; and the numbers and proportions of
each trade and profession are, except to the very
dullest, an agreeable piece of knowledge to each
individual belonging to them. Indeed, not
only our own occupations, but many of
those of others, down to the humblest
artizan, will be of much interest to all of us. The
cost of our knowledge will, it is true, figure as a
very noticeable item in the national expenditure, but
the fraction of a penny it costs per head is what all
of us would very willingly pay.
We are reminded that the census tables will be
a kind of great national directory ; that they will
indicate to us how different branches of business
are increasing or diminishing ; that we shall know
the number of our fighting men, which with our
intelligence and wealth determine our position
among the great Powers of Europe ; that we shall
find its advantage in our sanitary studies and legis-
lation, and in investigating the statistics of crime
In short, knowledge is not only pleasure, but
power; nor can we tell while we arc laboriously col-
lecting facts which seem dull and dry in their
first cumulation, how soon some master mind may
arise who shall seize the principle or principles
latent in them, develope them with a clearness which
leaves dispute out of the question, and thus origi-
nate new laws for the general guidance, which
shall become as much the foundation of national
legislation as have the principles first broadly
developed in this country by ADAM SMITH. Some
may think that no such field is now left open for
future explorers. So it would have been said
before the time of the Scotch philosopher. The
commercial men and legislators of those times
laughed, at first, at the idea of being instructed by a
Scotch philosopher. Aud our successors may well
find that some mighty power of intellect may yet
irradiate by his genius the vast mass of facts we
are now collecting, and shew their value in teach-
ing yet unthought of principles and rules in social
science.

One thing cannot be doubted, that it is the duty
of every householder to contribute his individual
quota towards doing the great work correctly and
well. The nation has agreed it should be done ;
and a perfect census will cost no more than an im-
perfect one, while it is attainable only by each
entering the names of those who slept in his house
on the night of the ith of April correctly. The
error we make, if we make any, should be on. the
side of precision. If we are too particular the
Registrar General can generalise our return, but
he cannot proceed vice versa. There is no reason
why we should not do this. No real secrets are
required of us. Such information as we do give
is to be treated as confidential. No tax or charge
is involved; we are only asked to contribute our
share towards answering the question, " What is
this our England in the year of our LORD eighteen
hundred and sixty-one ?"

While Lord PALMERSTON is engaged in sparring
with Mr. ROWCLIFFE—a Premier against a butcher
—at Tiverton, while he is praising the working of
the Corn-laws Repeal, and the wisdom of Parlia-
ment in repealing them, after he and the Whigs
had fought for them to the last, and even expired
with " the ruling passion strong in death," shouting
for an Bs. duty—and while he was praising the
people that they worked so hard and paid high
prices for food, so patiently—the people in many
places were not speaking quite so loudly in his
praise.

Manchester was holding a large meeting,
in which Mr. ROWCLIFFE'S views were far
more popular than the Premier's. Reform of
of the Representation according to the Row-
CLIFFS model being the main object of the meeting
and the subject of the speeches ; and there were men
of mark present too, the great manufacturing
member for tho city being at their head. the
House of Commons was rather mercilessly analysed,
and shewn to be so connected either with the Lords
or " the Services," that the wonder was not that they
spent money, but that they did not spend even
more. One speaker, amid great cheering and

applause, "hit" as hard as the redoubtable butcher
of Tiverton himself, only Lord PALMERSTON
was not present to complete the fun. He re-
marked " that it was idle to intimidate the Reform
party by saying that if Lord PALMERSTON went
out the Tory party would come in, for people wanted
to know the difference between Lord PALMERSTON
and a Tory, and were beginning to ask, Is he not
a Tory already ?' Was it not, therefore, the duty
of the Liberal party to turn out that Tory, let the
consequences be what they might ? The cry that
the working classes did not want reform was a
gratuitous calumny. Because the people had
relied upon the solemn pledges of the Govern-
ment, and were disposed to be quiet and
expectant, that confidence had been misconstrued
into indifference. The improvement of the work-
ing classes since 1848, their forbearance; good
order, and their disposition to co-operate with
those who did not go so far as themselves in poli-
tical innovation, and their confidence in the pledges
of the higher classes, were now thrust in their teeth

as the very reason why they were unworthy of

political power. He knew nothing so infamous.as
this in the whole history of political intrigue and

political apostacy."

On the composition of the house it was remarked

strain a point by getting home as fast as he pos-
sibly can, as to be at last in his place
enee more by the 15th instant, to do a
little more of his " yeoman's service," to do a little
more perhaps than yeoman's service, for that French
Treaty of his which he is so proud of. That
French treaty which will no doubt work admirably
remote in the hereafter, but which certainly is
working wretchedly just to begin with.

By this day week we are all to be numbered.
Our most gracious authorities condescend now a
days to enter into familiar explanations with her
MAJESTY'S most loyal subjects ; even Mr. GLAD-
STONE no longer presents to us the figures of! the
Revenue Returns without note or comment. The
powers who manage the census, having to depend
for the value of the results of their labour on the
co-operation, with good will, of the people, are
even hortatory and almost oratorical in their
preliminary discourse. They quote the. celebrated
Delphic motto, and reminds us that " Know
thyself," is a precept as applicable nationally as it
is individually. And:beyond question many nations,
had they known themselves better, would not have
undertaken the wars which have brought upon
them, even if victors, loss and distress, which
has been but ill repaid by the empty honour of
military glory ; while at home many an Act of
Legislation might have been modified, or not even
proposed, had the population, the health, and the
various statistical changes of trade and industry
been understood.

they will, it is made an excuse for keeping them
out of the franchise. " Excuses for the wrong in-
flicted upon us," they say, " are ever ready. If we
have felt sufficiently annoyed at that wrong to ex-
press our indignation, it has been urged that at such
a time our enfranchisement would be dangerous to
the state ; whilst, on the other hand, if we have
waited with comparative quietness the result of a
measure for our partial enfranchisement, then our
very absence from commotion has been cited against
us. Can it be wondered that treatment like this
has led to distrust and apathy ?"

They tell their fellow-operatives to rely hence-
forth on themselves only. "Why," they ask, "is
a question which has made and unmade Govern.
ments, which has been the rallying cry at the hus-
tings and the testing point at the poll-booth, still
only a question, and not an accomplished fact One
reason is obvious—we have left too much to others
the work we should have done ourselves." If Lord
PALMERSTON tells Mr. ROWCLIFFE that the people
have been apathetic in support of the bills which
his colleague introduced, the Norwich Political
Union can tell him why they were apathetic.
" We contend, moreover," they say, " that no mea-
sure of Parliamentary Reform has been introduced
sufficiently comprehensive to enlist the real earnest-
ness of the working classes. Spite of their acknow-
ledged progress, their admitted loyalty, their
patience under privation, and their inherent love of
fatherland, it is still believed that, as a class, they
cannot be trusted !" They call on each other to
repudiate this calumny, and point to wsity as the
means of success. If they resolve unitedly to be
free, those who now trifle with their liberties will
quickly find it convenient to grant them. Their
brief programme is the same as that of
all the meetings which are now being
held everywhere. Beginning with the suffrage,
they add—" But we hold that, whilst every man
has a right to vote, he has an equal right to pro-
tection in its exercise; on this ground we ask for
the Ballot. We contend, however, that without a
fair distribution of electoral power, even manhood
suffrage and secret voting are insufficient to secure
impartial legislation. Whilst some members of the
House of Commons represent 300 each (as Thet-
ford), others 5,000 (as Norwich), and others 27,000
(as the West Riding of Yorkshire), the widest
suffrage would be a farce. Nor till a national pro-
vision has been made to defray the necessary ex-
penses of electoral contests, so that not the wealthy
alone can present themselves to constituencies,
will the political rights of the people be conceded."
We advise Lord PALMERSTON to look about
him. The breeze desired by Lord JOHN RUSSELL
seems really to be arising; if he could silence the
Tiverton butcher on the Tiverton hustings, he can-
not, it seems, silence the honest man's opinions ;
for large meetings are everywhere telling the
Government that the working men mean to demand
the reforms which will give them honest represen-
tation.

THE VOCAL ASSOCIATION.—This excellent society
will give their second subscription concert at St. James's
Hall on Wednesday evening next, when Mendelsshon's
psalm " Hear my prayer" will be performed, with Madame
Lemrnens-Sherrington as principal soprano, and M. Lem-
mens the eminent organist, will accompany the psalm
throughout, and also perform a fugue in C minor. M.
Sainton, the unrivalled violinist, will perform with M.
Benedict Beethoven's romance in F for violin and piano-
forte, also a Scotch fantasia for the first time. The choir
of 200 voices will sing the choruses in Mendelsshon's psalm
and several madrigals and part-songs, the compositions of
some of our most eminent musicians. Altogether the con-
cert will be a great musical treat.
Bulwer Lytton's " My Novel" is translated into
French, by H. de l'Espine.
" Der Freischutz" is to be brought out shortly
at the Grand Opera, Paris.
The Emperor Napoleon has conferred a pension
of 5,000 francs (..-C200) on %I. Mery, who is suffering from
consumption and opthalmia.
The Oriental Budget states that Mr. Thacke ray
contemplates taking up the story of England's history at
the point where Macaulay left it.
Her Majesty has appointed Mr. Smirke, architect,
to be the treasurer of the Royal Academy, in the room of
Mr. Hardwick, who has retired from that post.
THE FRENCH NavY.--The following paragraph
on the French navy appears in'Bullier's lithographic sheets:
" I have already directed your attention to the extraordindry
activity which prevails at the Ministry of Marine. lam
informed that an office exists at that Ministry of which the
chief is charged with acquiring all the information possible
with respect to the supplies it may be necessary to demand
of mercantile houses. It is further added that M. Chasse-
loup Laubat, the Minister of Marine, has sent for the heads
of houses engaged in the copper trade, and likewise for the
representatives of some English houses who have smelting
furnaces in Wales. He eatered into the most minute details
with them as to the quality of the mineral and the man-
ner of reducing it to copper. A new contract for the sup-
plying the Marine Department with 500,000 kilogrammes
of copper is spoken of, If we add to that 300,000 kilo-
grammes which have been lately delivered, it may be pre-
sumed that there are a great many new ships of war to be
coppered. The last copper was supplied at if 30c. in
ingots which was formerly worth If. 65c., and at If. 45c.
for (topper in sheets whieh was formerly worth If. 80e.
The Minister expects to obtain copper of the same quality
at if 25c. in ingots and at If. 40c. in sheets."

At Madrid, Lisbon, and other towns in Spain,
Verdi's opera "11l Ballo in Maschera," which is announced
for performance at Covent Garden during the forthcoming
season, has been received with the utmost applause ; it
was less successful when brought out at Paris than else-
where.

Another steel-plated frigate, to be called the
Invincible, is to be launched at Toulon on the 4th of next
month. The Russian frigate Oleg has been taken into dock
at Toulon, in consequence of injuries she received during
the late gales, while anchored in the Fort of Villafranca.
SEDUCTION AND INFANTICIDE.—A Lisbon journal
states that the parish priest of a place called Lavre is
arrested on a charge of infanticide. Having seduced a girl,
who became while living with him the mother of a boy, he
baptised the child as soon as it was born, and immediately
afterwards strangled it—thus affording an extraordinary
instance of the compatibility of sincere religious belief with
the settled determination to commit the most ferocious
crimes. It is well known that in the Roman States there
used to be professional assassins who would kill a man for
10 scudi, provided they were permit•ed to give him time to
say a prayer ; but if required expressly to kill him without
a moment's notice, the strain upon their conscience was
much that they required double the money,

" that a large proportion of it could not, in the

course of human nature, have any sympathy with
the wants and wishes of the people. How was that
house constituted ? There were seventeen members
who were Ministers and Lords of the Treasury and
Admiralty ; twelve who were vies, presidents, com-
missioners, under secretaries, and the like; and there
were five law officers. Turning to the services
which some people took great glory in, he found
that there were ninety-two officers of the army
in the house—(shame !)—nine naval officers,
nine laid.% officers, forty-two officers of the

yeomanry cavalry, and eighteen volunteer officers."
And in regard to the national expenditure in this
year of lessened trade, of high rate of discount, of
large importation of food, of high prices for all
articles of haman food, we were reminded that
Mr. GLADSTONE had said, with reference to taxa-
tion, that our expenses not merely increased abso-
lutely, but they increased relatively to our means at
a prodigious rate. Between 1842 and 1853 the
increase in the wealth of this country was
at the rate of 12 per cent., and the
increase in the expenditure was at the
rate of 81 per cent. ; between 1853 and 1859 the
increase in the national wealth was 161 per cent.
but the increase in the national expenditure was at
the rate of 58 per cent. Could they go on at that
game of "beggar my neighbour ?"
From many other places we have accounts of
hearty meetings for Representative Reform. At
Norwich a political union has just been formed,
which has published an excellent address "to
their unenfranchised brethren." Like their Man-
chester " brethren," they assert that, behave how

LAri E6-(P NE IN
OA.


TELEGRAPHIC INT7ELLIGENCE.
WARSAW, MARCH 3

Count Zamoyski, on the ,occasion of his being
received in audience by Pri nee Gortschakoff, ad-
dressed him in a speech, of' which the following