The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-27 00:00:00

THE DERBY-DAY.

" Wednesday next," said the genial Viscount
last week, with that- elastic gaiety which a -weii4h t
of seventy years has not repressed, and which has
done-so much to make him a generallavourite with
his countrymen—" Wednesday next is the day of
our Isthmian Games." . The Pindaric anniversary,
has ariiVed=the great carnival of the great Metro-
polis—the one occasion on which London forgets
itself---,the universal holiday of the niillioned-peo-
pled city, when, with one, accord, the bu-iest popu-
lation in the world shakes itse'f .loose from the
trammels of business--Lgive4 o Ver for a brief breath=

ing-space the hungry hunt for gold, and swarming
forth from its close pent hive of toil and. accumnla.
tion, spreads it,elf -tinder the open eye of heaven
over the broad slopeS of the Surrey Downs. The
tradesman shuts his shop, the merchant closes his
ledger, Westminster Hall misses its accustomed
wigs, Capel-court is a solitude, and Cl•eipside a de-
solation. The Legislative Wisdom of the country
condescends, of course for this day only, to cold.
chicken and champagne. Statesmep. allow Europe,
the Empire, and her Majesty's Opposition, for 24
hours to take care of themselves. Even the Jour-
nalist (that most unrelieved. of toilers) drops his
hand for awhile from that never resting plough
which, working by night as well as by day, turns
up each morning the motly crop of facts and spe-
culations, missing which the modern world would
be as forlorn as Charles Lamb deemed the old ope
must have been, without the fumes of the great
Virginian weed—the breakfast table left to more
tea and toast—the dinner table bankrupt of topics,
and the diner out reduced to the short commons-of
his own wit.

Let "Rigour and Advice with scrupulous head,"
—let "Old Age and sour Severity" say what t'iey
•will, it is impossible for any one who has risen into
the atmosphere of a wider and more genial wisdom
not to feel that there is much positive good in this
sudden breaking up, for one day in the long re-
spectable year, of the dissevering decorums and
conventionalisms that hedge off class from class and
man from man. It is something, in such a stereo
typed, gas-lighted, well-drained, highly-policed
capital as this, to have one occasion which fuses all
:ranks, from the Duke to the Dustman, in the pur-
suit of a common recreation. Depend upon it
there was more wisdom than the graver kind of
writers are willing to allow, in that strange license
of the Roman Saturnalia hich for a time levelled
master and slave on the one broad plati,rm of .a
common humanity. The Derby is the London
Saturnalia. _ _ _

Of coarse we are not now talking of the thing in
a sporting point of view. The race itself is, after
all, rather the business than the pleasure of the
day. Our prophetic friends Meteor and Argus
have done their best to supply all whom it may
concern with the best available information as to
the prospects of the great contest. They aro ex-
posed to an ordeal which the more cautious kind of
vatisinators take good care to avoid ; a few hours
from the moment at which we are writing must
decide absolutely the truth or falsehood of their
predictions. It is as though Dr. Cumming had
pledged his reputation to the drying up of the
Euphrates before the next vigil of St. Bartholo-
mew, or to the emptying of the seventh vial on the
proximate morrow of All Souls. For ourselves,
we confess with shame that we know little and care
less about the "great event" so soon to be decided.
We have literally at this moment no clear concep-
tion of the latest state of the odds. It affects us
little to know that "Saunterer and Sprig of Sl4-
lelagh," on one occasion, "shuffled forwards in a
most mysterious manner ;" that "Skirmisher," on
another, "was not supported ;" that there has
" been an opposition wind to Lay Hawthorn and
Zuyder Zee, which for a long time kept them at a
low price in the market." A natural regard for
our distinguished correspondent, Meteor, may give
us some slight interest in the information that
so long ago as January last he "he stood on
Blink Bonny', Loyola, and Tournament, recom-
mending Zuyder Zee and Commotion as the best
outsiders, and Saunterer and Lambourn for hedging
and placing." It is comfortable also to be assured that
" the knocking about of different horses has still left
him a very good leg to stand on in Tournament ;"
but we very much fear that when all these admis-
sions are made we must still plead a very dense state
of ignorance as to the chances and even the names
of that "list of high bred running horses" in whose
performances so many thousands are to-day feeling
an all-absorbing interest.
For us the Derby day, not the Derby race, is the
point of interest and attraction. We cannot agree
with those more fastidious critics who think the
spectacle on Epsom downs has become less striking
in proportion as the attendance has.become less ex-
clusive. Vastness and multitude are the great
elements of the great sight. In the world there is
nothing equal to it. That bold broad sweep of
down land massed as far as the eye can reach with
living multitudes—the movement and the anima-
tion—the bright colours and the happy faces—the
intense breathlessness of concentrated interest, as,
straining every nerve- for victory, some half-dozen
possible winners of the Derby sweep along a living
whirlwind of horseflesh, some thirty seconds' dis-
tance from the winning-post—and then the rush,
and the roar, and the excitement—and the sudden
hunger and thirst, and the joyous greetings, and
the miles upoa miles of pit-nit parties, and the
scramble to the rail and the revels of the road,
make a total to which the boasted revelries of the
Roman, Venetian, and Paris Carnivals are mere
faded shams of merriment, not worthy to show
beside the sports of a people as exuberant in their
hilarity as they are concentrated in their earnest,.
ness. We have left ourselves no room for moral-
ising, and perhaps there is no great loss iu that.
Of course there is a wrong side to the tapestry in
this as in all other shows., and there is no danger
of its not being found out. For the moment we
are more disposed to congratulate our fellow-toilers
of the great Babylon on the recurrence of their an-
nual holiday, and to express a hope that Favonius
will be on his best behaviour, throughout the day-;
that the may bear on his wings no showers that a
parasol may not turn with ease ; that the dust may
be as moderate and the sun as bright as could be
wished ; that the race may prove a good one ' • and
—to conclude with Horace as we began with Piu-
dar—that Meteor, proved a true prophet, may
" strike the stars with his sublime head.—Daily
News.

THE UNITED KINGDOM ALLIANCE.

The annual metropolitan meeting of this alliance was
held last evening at Exeter Hall. The Hon. Judge
Marshall (of Nova Scotia), in the chair, who in open.
ing the proceedings, said it had been his privilege, hon-
our, and happiness to have been associated with the
total-abstinence movement many years, which he consi-
dered the only means by which all social evils were to be
remedied.
The Rev. J. Burns then proposed a resolution, which
cordially welcomed the Hon. Neale Dow (the originator
of the Maine liquor law) ; which having been seconded
by T. Beggs, Esq., and supported by the Earl Of Hat•
rington, was put to the meeting, and carried
unanimously.
Upon the rising of the " lion" of the evening, the
Hon. Neale Dow, the crowded hall became a scene of
the wildest enthusiasm, which did not subside for some
minutes. Having alluded to the entente cordiale at pre-
sent existing between us and our Transatlantic brethren,
the hon. gentleman proceeded to observe that the annihi-
lation of the traffic in intoxicating drinks was a moral,
political, and social question, and he believed this mat-
ter was more important to the State than all otber ques-
tions of the day. Objection had been raised against a
prohibitory system that it would interfere with the
legislative rights of the subject ; but the movement,
he contended, neither involved nor interfered with the
rights of the subject at all, for this reason, that
the subject had no right which was inconsistent with
the general public good —salus populi suprema lex. They
talked about personal liberty in Great Britain, and yet
the most magnificent buildings which he had ever seen
in this kingdom were the offshoots of beer-shops and
grog-shops—the prisons, wherein her Majesty's subjects
were restrained of their liberty, because their liberty
was inconsistent with th e general public weal. With re-
gard to the Maineslaw ha Great Britain, they had 39-
40ths of it already ; for :1-40th part only of the popula-
tion was licensed to sell strong drinks, and consequently
the other 39 parts were really under the Maine law.
This law had proved of incalculable advantage in
the province of Maine, for 'by its enactment was effected
the almost entire disappearance of intemperance, and
the gaols were almost empty., He then proceeded to re-
view the effects which the Maine law had worked in
Portland, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and other places, in
all of which it had proved of the greatest benefit to the
general populate. In a peroration of some force the
hon. gentleman concluded by saying that he was sure
that if her Most Gracious IVlisjc sty would lend her in-
fluence to this great movement, i t would be said that no
person bad ever lived who had conferred so much._ benefit
upon her subjects ; and he felt
s of view s e d
,assured that ifh she
con-
sidered this subject from all
pa iar„,l
her
nt
then all men and
Id rise, and call woul
all
give her sanction to its cause,
nations, with one acclathation, wo,
" blessed." (The hon. gentleman. sa t down amid enthu-
siastic cheering.)
addrossea the meeting, the
Other speakers having
usual vote of thanks to the chair man oonchtded the pro-
ceedings

THE QUEEN'S EIBTIIDAY.

MINISTERIAL BANQUETS.

The Queen's birthday was yesterday the occasion
of full-dress banquets given by her Majesty's Mi-
nisters and the Great Officers of State. The fol-
lowing is a record of the principal entertain-
ments :