The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-31 00:00:00

THE SUN' LO NDON, TUESDAY E' NI NG, DECEMBER 31, 1861.1

merging int 0.1862, is saddened 'by the remembrance
of the bitter home-grief that has fallen so abruptly
and so recently upon the Royal Household. Other
reigning dynasties have no immunity from the
same astounding bereavements—as we have start-
ling cause to remember, at the present moment, by
reason of the rapid succession of deaths (also from ty-
phoid fever) at the Palace of the Necessidades at Lis-
bon ; the last of theselamentable deaths being that of
the young Prince JoAo—destined so soon to follow
his two youthful brothers, the late ii.a4r tatX OMIT-
GAL and H.R.H. DoM FERDINAN .11 has
been playing havoc, moreover, during the past
year among our own illustrious compatriots. The
Lord High Chancellor CAMPBELL, full of years
and honours, it will be remembered, expired quite
suddenly during the twelvemonth. Slowly, slowly,
however, amidst the grief of all who knew him'
faded out the life of one of our most honoured and
in many ways richly-gifted administrators, the
Lord HERBERT of LEA, better known as the Right
Hon. SIDNEY HERBERT. A veteran chief of the
House of Commons, whose commanding presenee,
will long be missed there, died also in 1861, in the
person of Sir JAMES GRAHAM. Another familiar
form that often rose there from the back benches ,an
the Liberal side of the House to address Mr.
SPEAKER, in the midst almost invariably of wood-
huruoured 'laughter, will be looked for in vain
when Parliament again assembles—meaning that
of gallant, honest, eccentric, but thoroughly con-
sistent Tom DUNCOMBE, the dandy Radical
member for the metropolitan borough of Finsbury.
Glancing back into the expiring year from our own
shores to the remoter shores of the European Con-
tinent we recall to mind, of course, the disappear-
ance, also apparently in mid career, of another poten-
tate than the late King of PORTUGAL—tO wit his
Imperial Majesty the Sultan CALIPH ABDUL
MEDJTD, now succeeded) by his brother ABDUL
Azrz upon the Ottoman throne at Constantinople.
Still noting the Royal Houses of Christendom we
are reminded that defeat and not death (that might
—one would think—have been preferable to such
a defeat !) has prevented the prolongation of the
reign of King FRANCIS 11. on the throne of the Two
Sicilies. GARIBALDI'S triumph has not been mili-
tated against during 1861—but the rehabilitation
of things generally there in Southern Italy has, on
the contrary, been confirmed and strengthened with-
out the Liberator having had reason to go thither
again to the rescue since his departure like another
CINCINATUS to his little home-farm at Caprera. The
Re Galantuomo—if he has failed to see his Italian
Kingdom enlarged further so as to fulfil
at last the French EMPEROR'S renowned
programme in the Milan Proclamation, ex-
tending, namely, from the Alps to the Adriatic—
has
.found the sceptre of his new realm settled
more and more firmly in his bold grasp—the iron
diadem of CHARLEMYNE fitting more and more
securely on his brow. Venetia is stillgarrisoned by
the Austrians, .:as also is the whole system of
fortresses constituting the grand stronghold of the
Quadrilateral—as, indeed, is still the Eternal City
itself by the soldiers of that Eldest Son of the
Church, his Majesty the Emperor NAPOLEON 111.
But—it was but the other day that the Hermit
of Caprera—who never yet has spoken idly
or at random—volunteered the intimation to
his compatriots, that the signal would soon come to
them to be again a-foot, and that, too, sword:in
hand, and under his guidance ! The Austrian KAISER
all the while, from the beginning of 1861 to the
end of it, having had cause to husband his military
recources in Venetia and the Quadrilateral,has still
more reason to do this, therefore, by reason of
GARIBALDI'S formidable intimation I FRANCIS
JOSEPH having this paramount responsibility
thrust upon him, moreover, with his coffers, as
usual, empty, and his heart full, of solicitude as to the
future attitude to be assumed by the Hungarians
towards his Government. As thus dubiously stand
matters between the KAISER and the:Magyars—so
more than ever alarmingly, they stand now between
the CZAR and his Polish Lieges. If death has
carried affliction to the reigning family at
Lisbon, the hopes of brighter days for Spain have
gladdened the councils of Queen ISABELLA at
Madrid—the expansion of her dominions beyond
the waters:of the Atlantic occurring simultaneously
with the development of the resources of her people
in the Iberian peninsula. Here in England mean-
while, if we have advanced hardly in any way
appreciably upon the path of internal reform, we
have during 1861 maintained intact hitherto
our friendly relations with foreign powers—
strengthening above all with mutual increase
of good will upon either side of the Channel our
amity with our Imperial neighbour in France.
NAPOLEON, in truth, has given good auguries, not
only to us but to his own people, by various
incidents that have marked this latest year of his
reign : insomuch that the financial reforms adven-
tured upon in the autumn of '6l are beginning to
be regarded by many of the keenest observers (in-
stance the Paris correspondence recently in the
columns of our able and thoroughly liberal contem-
porary the Daily News) as preliminary to the long
promised crowning of the political edifice with in-
stitutions that, once adopted, would trans-
form the all but irresponsible CASAR and Dic-
tator into that undoubted phenomenon a Con-
stitutional Emperor ! Within the compass of the
dying year we have had to record the close of the
Chinese war, the revival of outrages in Japan, the
introduction of many wonderful changes in our In-
dian administration, No Parliamentary Reform
(after all I) in the Three Kingdoms, the Conclusion
of the Little War in New Zealand, the rapid growth
of the youngest of our sixty colonies (i. e., British
Columbia), the deepening and strengthening of the
loyalty of that and the rest of our vast and scattered
possessions in all parts of the globe—and shall
we have soon to add to this catalogue
of events, the outbreak, at length, of a long
threatened conflict between the British Government
and the Federal Government at Washington ? As
to that last and direst contingency of all, however,
we must now speak separately.

England has been again more interested through
a whole year in foreign than in domestic matters,
and those chiefly on the other side the Atlantic.
At the commencement of the year, indeed, our
attention was attracted, wearisomely, to the ungene-
rous conduct of the French EMPEROR before Gaeta ;
and, when that was over, the noble struggle of
Hungary and her Diet with the Despot of Vienna
and his Germans deeply interested not only Eng-
land, but the friends of liberty all over the world.
The spectacle of a long suppressed nation obtaining
the power of utterance, and using it to assert its
unquestionable rights, and to maintain its venerable
institutions against the threats and cunning of
Vienna, was one from which Englishmen could not
divert their thoughts. The name of DEAK now
takes its place with that of the great constitutional
heros of history, with the HAMPDENS, and SYDNEYS,
and CAVOURS. Hungary has now made her position;
she has gained the verdict of the court of Christen-
dom, and only awaits the opportunity to issue
execution—an opportunity sure to come, and, it
would seem, hastening rapidly.
But hardly had Hungarian demonstrations ceased
'by the arbitrary dissolution of the Diet when the