The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-09 00:00:00

Opposition. Listening to him, it was as if we
heard the loudest and most boisterous of some
" four and twenty happy boys," who like the
urchins in HOOD'S Ballad of " Eugene Aram"—
" Came bounding out of school."

And of whom the poet sings in an exhilarating

rhyme—
" There were some that ran, and some that leaped,
Like fishes in a pool."
Ever since then Mr. OSBORNE, happily for us all, has
remained ungagged. Occasionally during the last,
for the most part, dull and tedious session he has
enlivened the debates with his sparkling and some-
times caustic, but even then always good-humoured
pleasantries. About the happiest and most " tell-
ing" of all the speeches that he has delivered this
year, either in or out of Parliament, is the one
addressed by him to his constituents at Liskeard on
Wednesday evening. It is BERNAL OSBORNE all
over. Full of home truths, flashed upon us like the
thrust of a rapier. Full of the most poignantly
laughter-provoking, but at the same time the most
perfectly gentlemanly, personalities. Mr. OSBORNE
is as a speaker—we all know it—what SIDNEY SMITH
was as a conversationalist : a professional dealer in
bon mots, eccentric witticisms, and extravagant
whimsicalities. It matters nothing to him what the
theme may be that is presented to him for con-
sideration. It is not by any means requisite that
it should be in itself essentially a provocation to
laughter—let us say like Father DALY'S inter-
position between the Premier and the Post-office
in regard to the affair of the Galway Contract, or,
again, like Mr. VINCENT SCULLY'S excruciatingly
ludicrous extravagancies in regard to what he deems
the wrongs of Ireland. CHARLES LAMB said of
MUNDEN'S acting that it could "impart a dignity to
a joint-stool," and of MUNDEN himself that. he could
" understand a leg of mutton in its quiddity."
GILBERT A'BECKETT, that Prince of Punsters, one
of the pleasantest of wags, and yet in spite of that one
of the worthiest of our London police magistrates,
could, in the estimation of those who knew him best,
turn the dullest subject, by merely writing about it,
into the delightfullest. It is pretty much in this
way that, by merely speaking about anything in
the wide wide world, Mr. OSBORNE can always
contrive to make it entertaining: and it is after this
fashion that he deals with the dull dead level of the
at length happily dead and gone Parliamentary
Session of 1861. It is thus he deals with all that
is peccant—and what is not ?—in the Great Liberal
Party so called. What is it he terms the Reform
Question for example ? Why, borrowing a whim-
sical phrase from OLIVER GOLDSMITH, he designates
it " A very good horse in the stable, but a jade on
the road." Does he quote a felicitous saying,
uttered by the right hon. gentleman the Leader
of the Opposition, he can't for the life of him
resist remarking of him incidentally, that while
Mr. DISRAELI often says a good thing, he but
seldom does any-! An odd way of putting a party
view, that the member for Bucks would be first to
laugh at. The Liberal party itself Mr. OSBORNE
designates humorously "a set of confirmed inva-
lids." Messrs. VILLIERS and GIBSON he speaks of
as having been allowed to take their places low
down at the Cabinet table—below the salt, shall
we say—like poor relations. In effect, through all
his witty gibes and oddities, he arrives point-
blank at this sound, common sense view of
the whole political situation, before he brings
to an end his capital speech at Liskeard,
on Wednesday. He says :—" The state of the
Liberal party is becoming somewhat of a mongrel
nature. We have now got into a state of confusion,
and if you ask one man what he is in politics he
will tell you Liberal Conservative, and if you ask
another he will say he is a Conservative Liberal.
What is to be the end of all these political differ-
ences? Unless some energetic measures are taken
by her MAJESTY'S Government to meet Parliament
with measures entitled to public approbation, not
only about spending money, but cutting down and
reforming the expenditure, I believe that question
will be taken out of their hands, and they will be
consigned to the outer darkness of Opposition."
Let the Ministry—while laying these home truths
well to heart during the next half year—remember
that they are uttered by a thorough-going Liberal.
And let them remember this, too—that, as the old
proverb tells us, " there is many a true word spoken
in jest."

The Right Hon. B. Disraeli and Mrs. Disraeli
have passed through town for Hugenden Manor, Bucks,
from Knebworth Park, Herts, whore they have been on a
visit to the Right Hon. Sir E. Balmer Lytton.

The new decoration of the Legion of Honour
of Agriculture will, it is said, consist of a star, ornamented
with mother of pearl, and surrounded with rays in silver;
on one side will be the likeness of the Emperor Napoleon,
and on the other agricultural symbols. It will be worn
suspended from a blue ribbon streaked with red. The new
Order is to be established on the 15th, the Emperor's fete.
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.—The Earl of Derby,
Chancellor of the University, has appointed the Rev.
I:am Charles Salter, M.A., Vice-Principal of this Hall,
Fellew of Balliol College, to the Principalship of St. Alban-
ball, in the room of the late lamented Dr. Cardwell. The
appointment of Mr. Salter, who has held the office of Vice-
Principal several years, has given great satisfaction.

THE FRENCIL NAVY.—The Independance Beige
says :—" Notwithstaading the jealousy exhibited on the
other side of the Channel, the French Government con-
tinues to give important development to the organisation of
its naval force. Our correspondence for some days past
has given us intelligence of an augmentation of the mari-
time cadres. The Petrie of to-day'announces the :crea-
tion of a special division of plated vessels in the squadron
of evolutions. This division will consist of four or five
vessels."

JUDGES' CHAMBERS.—Yesterday the Lord Chief
Justice of the Queen's Bench, Sir Alexander Cockburn, the
vacation judge, made an order that business was to com-
mence at Chambers on Monday, the 12th of August, and
following days, at 11 o'clock, and that all parties desiring
to attend before the judge on and after Monday, the 12th
day of August, can do so at his residence, No. 40, Hert-
ford-street, May Fair, at 12 o'clock. During the long
vacation attendance will be given at the Common Law and
Crown-office from 11 until 2 o'clock only, daily. After the
termination of the circuit, the business during the entire
vacation does not, of necessity, entirely devolve upon the
vacation judge, as it is quite competent for any judge to
act who may be in town.

THE CONDEMNED CONVICT HILTON.—The exe-
cution of this unfortunate man, condemned at the last Cam-
bridgeshire assizes for the murder of his wife at Parson
Drove, near Wisbeach, in March last, and who so persist-
ently insisted on pleading guilty, is fixed for Saturday next
at Cambridge. By the exertions of his father and his inde-
fatigable solicitor, Mr. 01lard, a petition for a remission of
the capital sentence was forwarded to the Home-office,
urging, first, circumstances which might lead to the con-
viction that the prisoner is insane, and secondly that it was
possible that he received sufficient provocation from his
deceased wife to reduce the crime to manslaughter. To this
a reply was received from Sir G. Grey stating that he could
see no sufficient ground for interference with the operation
of the law.

the lasultwtl
NEWS FOR THE MERCANTILE WORLD.—Within
with
2hleaal lryse offices,ars forty-eight new fire-offices have been esta-
blished, of which only twelve now continuo in existence,
showing that the fire insurance business has not been suc-
ethesesfnlare, Thewit
with
aornees of all
pfitrieonoffices
a withinais-
count, and some unsaleable. At a meeting at the Mansion
House the other day the wildest inferences were drawn by
the speakers. From rough statistics hastilycollected,
it
might have been inferred that all the business of the
fire
offices was London insurances, and second, that all the
London business consisted of mercantile risks. Now, the
fact is, the premiums on London mercantile fire insurances,
even of the leading commercial offices, constitute a most
insignificant per-centage of their general revenue, not, we
believe, on the average, above two or three per cent. On
the other hand, it is stated by these offices that daring the
last ten or twelve years the losses paid ou this class have
amounted, on the average, to nearly three times the pre-
miums secured. We earnestly caution the public against
trusting to the delusive statements made by professional
promoters in any new scheme. The hard savings of a life-
time may be lost when staked in new undertakings—the
whole of the capital sunk—by one large fire such as hap-
pened at Southwark.