The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-17 00:00:00

increase the restrictions created by the Bank
Charter Act of 1844.

There may possibly be an appeal to the country
during the ensuing session. That will be the
golden opportunity that should not be wasted or
misapplied. If neglected, or misapplied, years
must elapse before another similar chance
can arise. Another commercial crisis will
ensue, and the working classes will endure suffer-
ings worse than those that would attend an. Euro-
pean war, or even an internecine contest, and all
because the "hard calculators" have considerable
Parliamentary influence, and will, not relinquish
any portion of their monopoly so long as they can
possibly retain it.
The issue is literally one between " labour and
money." While we had paper currency there was
always liberal remuneration for toil. The man able
and willing to work was certain of obtaining a rea-
sonable support for himself and family.
But now he may starve, unless the
savings of former years have proved a
fund on which he can fall back and maintain him-
self and all dependent on him in the dark hour of
distress. All that is required is a little study,
some slight attention to that which, of all
others, ought to attract the attention of the
voter. The letters of that earnest and consistent
monetary reformer, Mr. HAMER STANSFELD,
will alone supply the necessary information.
If they were attentively considered, nothing more
would be wanting. They explain the evil, and
point out the ,remedy so cleverly, that he " who
runs may read." We want a really national Bank,
issuing really national paper, which every
one will be willing to accept, inasmuch as it
will be a legal tender, and receivable in payment
of taxes and every other demand. Such a sys-
tem would prevent the fluctuations in the rate
of discount, which have been more injurious
to the interests of the people than the failures of
all the Banks of Issue that have ever suspended
payment. The question of Monetary Reform is in
the hands of the people themselves, and if it is not
satisfactorily arranged during the ensuing session
they alone will be to blame, and they will be the
chief sufferers.

The Right Honourable Member for Stroud is
certainly bent upon drawing as broad a contrast as
possible between himself in that character and his
now almost forgotten alter ego, as the Honourable
Member for Cockermouth. " None but himself
could be his parallel" might be said of anybody
else but Mr. HORSMAN. With him it should rather
run—None but himself can by any possibility be his
antithesis—an antithesis in every way so startling
and remarkable. Restive in harness, he is as tame as
you please—to the driver against whom he formerly
rebelled—now that he is let loose in the paddock
of the Opposition. The ex-Secretary for Ireland
was the first to repudiate the ex-Premier so soon
as the Noble Viscount had fallen (with the triple
pathos of DAnius) from his high state. Now—
Mr. HORSMAN is the first, and nearly the only
one, to pronounce a studied panegyric (rather " out
of place," in a double sense, under the circum-
stances) upon Lord PALMERSTON. Yet instead of
commending, either his genius as a statesman►
his sagacity as an administrator, or his capacity as
a parliamentary orator...he directs his admiring
allusions rather to the agility of the veteran Vis-
count as a dancer at Compeigne, and as a hunter across
country down in Hampshire. Mr. HORSMAN is
especially struck with the "pluck and go" of the
noble lord—a phrase of evil import, as it
happens, however, seeing that the "go " with
Lord PALMERSTON has been chiefly signalised of
late by his go out as the Leader of her MAJESTY'S
Government. However, the ex-Secretary for Ire-
land is so repentant for his unfaithfulness that he
overdoes it. " Lord PALMERSTON as Premier," said
Mr. HORSMAN (for we must accord him the advan-
tage of giving ipsissima verba), " Lord PALMER-
STON as Premier might have failed, but if he failed
it was because he had no colleagues as capable as
himself. If they polled the whole House of Com-
mons through they would find no man half so popular,
and as to his age, there were more pluck and energy
about him than in the youngest member. He had,
shown that during the recess ; for, while others
deprived of the sunny regions of office, which they
had occupied since the days of Earl GREY, com-
plained of the rheumatism, and enveloped themselves
in flannel and worsted nightcaps, Lord PALMERSTON
was starring it at Romsey, and dancing at Com-
piegne; and the other day they heard that he had
broken his collar-bone riding at a fence in Hamp-
shire. There was more English pluck and ' go' in
him than in any half-dozen of those who, having once
made him their idol, would now turn him into their
scapegoat." By a parity of reasoning, we ought to
choose for a female sovereign a DIANA of Poictiers,
or a Countess of DESMOND—
" Who lived to the ago of a hundred and ten
1 And died by a fall from a cherry tree then;
What a frisky old girl I"

Our Lord High Chancellor ought to be invariably
a HATTON or some such perennial specimen of
grace and agility. The notion of commending the
Noble Viscount as a Premier because of his riding
at a fence, and dancing in a quadrille, and not wear-
ing either a flannel jacket or a woollen
nightcap is certainly in accordance with the face-
tious idea of Mr. DICKENS that the noble lord's
true title ought to have been First Lord of the
Jokery rather than first Lord of the Treasury. As
to the flannel derisively spoken of by Mr. HORS-
MAN—What, by the way, is that glimpse we obtain
through the historico-romantic lens of Mr.
THACKERAY'S " Virginians" (see the very latest
number for this current month of January,
vol. ii., p. 74), that glimpse of a really great
Minister, the renowned Earl of CHATHAM, when
he was still the famous Mr. Secretary PITT, tall in
stature, with an eagle eye and beak, and a grave,
majestic presence. Observes Mr. THACKERAY—drOp-
ping his voice to a hushed whisper—"As I see that
solemn figure passing, even a hundred years off, I
protest I feel a present awe, and a desire to take
my hat off. I am not frightened at GEORGE IL,
nor are my eyes dazzled by the portentous appear-
ance of his Royal Highness the Duke of CULLO-
DVN and FONTENOY, but the Great Commoner, the
terrible Cornet of Horse ! His figure bestrides our
narrow isle of a century back like a Colossus ; and
I hush as he passes in his gouty shoes his thunder-
bolt hand wrapped in flannel." As to the night-
cap question, gravely particularised by Mr. HORS-
MAN, it reminds one of that entry in BOSWELL'S
Tour to the Hebrides, under date Wednesday, Sept.
29, where JOHNSON mercilessly roasts his biogra-
pher_ci I asked him," writes BOSWELL, "if he
had ever been accustomed to wear a night-

cap ?' He said No.' I asked if it was
best not to wear one.--JoHNsoN : Sir, I had this
custom by chance, and perhaps no man shall ever
know whether it is best to sleep with or without a
night-cap.' Soon aftcrvrards, he was laughing at
some deficiency in the Highlands, and said, One
might as well go without shoes and stockings.'
Thinking to have a little hit at his own deficiency, I
ventured to add, Or without a night-cap, sir.'
But I had better have been silent; for he
retorted directly, Ido not see the con-
nection there (laughing.) Nobody before
[or, duce, for that matter—till Mr. 1101153W]