The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-17 00:00:00

o x

6, OXFORD-STREET.
The architectural beauty, elegance of ornamentation, and
brilliancy of lighting of this noble building, render it one of
the sights of London. Open Every Evening. The pro-
gramme is varied, and includes Selections from "La Tra-
viat4," "Un Ballo in 3faschera," tc., (by a full company of
principals, powerful band, and chorus). Solos by Miss Bryant
en the Piano Forte, and by Mr. Russell on the Trombone.
Old English Ballad, by Miss Green, icotch Duets by the
Misses Stuart, and other vocal and instrumental music of the
highest order. Conductor, Mr. F. Jonghmans. The Comic
portion of the entertainment is supported by Messrs. M. P
Foster (in his " Life Sketches"), Sam Collins, HlreYil as,,
and
French (the Nerves), E. Marshall, and W. Banda
ate Boxe
sixpenee ; Balcony and Stalls, one shilling. PriV
10s. 6d.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
TKI Djy._Morning, 11h. 24m.—Afternoon, h. m.
To-moußow.-Morning,, 12h. 6m.—Afternoon.r 12h. 36m.

THE WEATHER.—Strx OFFICE, Auarsr 17, 1861
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE,
72—highest since noon yesterday.
52 lowest this morning and during the night.
69—this day at noon.

BAuoktzrzn-30.08 ; rising.
WIND South- Westerly rather fresh; with heavy,
cloudy weather.

4:10

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THE SUN.
LONDON, SATtRDAY, AUGUST 17, 1881.

Under any circumstances it was recognised to be
little more than an instalment, at any rate to be
merely a commencement of a good work, this new
Bankruptcy Law, introduced into the House of
Commons this last session by Sir RICHARD BETHELL
as Attorney-General, and carried through the
House of Peers by Lord WESTBURY, as Lord High
Chancellor. Supposing the bill to have been car-
ried through the Lords without any modification—
it must even then have been accepted by the Legis-
lature, and handed over to the public at large, simply
as a commencement. It happened last year that a
much larger measure of reform in regard to the Law
of Bankruptcy and Insolvency was submitted to
Parliament by the same great lawyer. That more
comprehensive measure, however, was too big to
be carried. The late-Attorney-General, the now
Lord High Chancellor of England, recognising
the cause of that failure, modified his
views, as we all very clearly, and let
us add, very gratefully remember—introducing, in
lieu of his gigantic bill of the previous Session, one
of much more moderate scope, almost immediately
after Parliament was again brought together in
February. Without relaxing his energies he wisely
determined at once to lower his ambition for the
moment as a Law Reformer. His proposition to
Parliament, therefore, while becoming " small by
degrees" became also, in the best sense of the words,
" beautifully less," inasmuch as it increased the
probabilities of immediate success following these
diminished efforts of the First Law Adviser of the
Crown. The Commons appreciated the force of this
almost upon the instant, and passed the new Bill
through itS several stages with all convenient speed.
A first and second time it was read—it passed
almost scathless through Committee—it was carried
in all essential respects unmarred from the Lower
to the Upper House of Parliament. There, in the
Lords, it met with very different treatment indeed.
Instead of taping welcomed with cordiality as a step,
and a very notable step, too (though an exquisitely
cautious one) in the right direction—it was viewed
with suspicion almost from the instant of its
appearance. Party spite, it was thought, would
yet scatter to the winds all the fair promises
afforded to the author of the measure during its
rapid transit through the Commons. That sus-
picion being awakened not unnaturally among
Government men by the apparently significant
fact that it was the noble Earl the leader of the
Opposition, and no other than Lord DERBY, who
moved that the new Bankruptcy Bill should be
referred to a Select Committee of the Lords for
more careful and deliberate examination, One
consequence of its being thus subjected
to the scrutiny of that (so far as the public
Were concerned) inaudible and invisible Com-
mittee was soon 'enough beheld and appreci-
ated. The measure upon again coming before the
Lords in Parliament assembled, was found to have
passed through a series of frightful alterations.
It was not only that it had a limb lopped off here
and there, but its very head was clean gone—the
projected new judge of the Court of Bankruptcy.
The Bill was fairly decapitated. It came forth
bleeding from the ordeal. It then had to be either
rejected altogether or accepted for what it was
actually worth. No longer, of course, in the eyes
of its Original fabricator a finished work of art—a
work of art perfected so far as it went—it was
still thought better (even by the Attorney-General,
newly transformed into Lord Chancellor) that
the measure in its stunted and splintered form
should be preserved for future completion rather
than t'arown aside petulantly as no longer worthy
:f Preservation. The work of art, with its hands
_ feat broken away, and even its head struck off,
/7 a mill preserved as a sort of Torso. A Torso—
flug"tive, by the lines of beauty still left, of the
mannerZtfeustnre completion. Is it not notorious
—the
a of the new Bankruptcy Bill might
have
a; fined
i within themselves is it not
notorious that that Boast and Triumph of
the sculptor's art, the IT "Venus de
now de-
lighting all beholders from its pedestal in the
Tribune at Florence, was
(not so very long back)
when brought to light from its interment of many
centuries, a headless fragment
bereft of an arm ?
And yet—a skill of hand, of
eye, of brain, less than
attained by the practi.ed genius of D
lIIDIAs or
PRAXITILES has since then brought that workof
art,
in spite of eve ry apparent difficulty, to its lete,3ezt