The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-18 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, JUNE is, 1857.

We earnestly invite attention to a very able
tlett3r from a fair correspondent, 4‘ll-. B. D.,"
which will be found in another part of this day's
impression. It so clearly and forcibly explains
the grievances of married women in respect to
their rights of property and it; administration,

and to the total absence of reciprocity in the par-
tial and defective Divorce Bill now before Parlia-
ment, that it requires but little argument, to sus-
tain and enforce its admirable suggestions, ,There
is but one point in it which we could wish it had
been otherwise, and that is ' but an act of
omission, in passing over the consistent, in-
defatigable, and most efficient efforts of Lord
BROUGHAM, so long the devoted and chivalrous
champion of the gentle sex. It was his powerful
and convincing oration in the House of Lords, on
the 13th February last, which laid the foundation
on which Sir ERSKINE PERRY framed the measure
which he brought forward in the House of Com-
mons. He was unfortunately absent during the
earlier stages of Lord CRANWORTH'S very partial
and inadequate Bill, and to that unavoidable ab-
sence may be ascribed the temporary success of
the Episcopal provisoes. But on his return, he
completely demolished the fragile basis on which
they rented, and induced many of his brother
Peers to take less prejudiced views of the im-
portant question. We need not say that, in
claiming for Lord BROUGHAM the credit to which
he is so eminently entitled, it is not our desire,
in any way, to detract from the efficient efforts of
his able and zealous coadjutors, Lord LYNDHURST
and Sir ERSKINE PERRY. Ad have done well,
and long may they live to enjoy the thanks and
gratitude of their fair countrywomen.
" H. R. D." has graphically depicted the case
of the young possessor of a princaly estate, of
lands, manors, rents, franchises, houses, and all
the appurtenances of wealth, who ascends the
altar with a man on whom she has bestowed the
inestimable treasure of her devoted love. At the
very moment that she becomes a wife, she also
becomes a pauper. She divested of all her
property, and if anything is retained for her own
use, it can only be by the intervention of trustees.
As we recently stated, the moment it is reduced
into possession, it becomes liable not merely to
the demands of the husband, but also of his cre-
ditors. He or they may seizs the articles pur-
chased with her money or bestowed by cherished
friends or relative, and hallowed by many endear-
ing recollections. Although the chain may be
gilded, she is but a white slave, without pro-
perty, whose all rests on the consideration of her
master.

But there is a still harder case. Many
wives are endowed with genius and talent, and
patient industry enabling them to acquire an in-
dependence by their own unassisted efforts.
These cannot be vested in Trustees. And whether
it be the milliner, dressmaker, or humble sernp-
' stress, who can earn an humble subsistence for
herself and children (to whose interests she post-
pones every selfish consideration), or the distin-
guished and brilliant authoress, the skilful
artiste, all her gains may be seized and
squandered by a brutal husband, either in
degrading dissipation, or on a worthless
paramour, or the support of his spurious progeny
—in any manner that he thinks proper, although
the application may add the deepest insult to the
heartless injury. There is not, as Lord BROUGHAM
declared, " the slightest possibility of his being
in any, the, very least degree, either controlled or
even called to account for the heartless crue'ty of
his robbery, or his profligate use of its fruits."
There is but one practical remedy, and that is
by rendering woman perfectly free and independent,
giving her, in the absence of a settlement, full
control over the property which she possessed be-
fore marriage, or which she may subsequently
have acquired, and also of the fruits of her own
industry. As H. EL D. says, " Let her have a
legal status like her husband. Let her enjoy her
own property. Secure to her the honest fruits of
her own labour, and then let her take upon her-
' self her separate liabilities and responsibilities !"
This is what women are entitled to, and they
should never be contented until they have re-
ceived a full and complete measure of justice.
As to divorce, we have always declared our-
selves the advocates of perfect reciprocity.
Women, GOD bless them, are more lenient and
forgiving than the sterner sex; and we believe that,
if the power were given, it would but seldom be
resorted to. They might find it necessary to separate
from a profligate husband, but with the intuitive
delicacy far which they are conspicuous, they
would shrink from parading their grievan :es, and
exposing themselves to the cold world's cruel scorn,
nor if rendered independent as to their own pro-
perty and earnings would there be any urgent ne-
cessity for so doing. But when any condonation
is rendered absolutely impossible, when the man
has outraged every feeling, and can only be re-
garded with horror and contempt, his victim
should not be condemned to pine in hopeless soli-
tude, without anything to alleviate her miserable
condition. Let the power be given to woman as
well as to man, and sure we are that it will not be
abused. Once more we venture to remind our
fair readers that the cause will be " mainly lost
or won through their own efforts," and that
they should not permit the golden opportunity
to pass without taking due advantage thereof.
Although they may have no personal reasons for
insisting on justice—although their unions may
have fulfilled tho warmest aspirations of their
hearts, they have suffering sisters, and they'
should aid in the struggle to establish the un-
questionable rights, and vindicate the flagrant
wrongs of their sex. If they do so an early
triumph is certain. If not, they may live to
deplore the insensate folly of their blind credulity
and selfish feelings.

The National Gallery, it is stated, will not be
removed to Kensington-gore, after all, but will
be permitted to remain—as we have all along
insisted that it ought to remain—upon its old
site, at the north side of Trafalgar-square. A
more magnificent site could not possibly be any-
where discoverable in all London and Westminster.
A. more central situation could hardly be desired.
A more suitable position, everything considered,
could hardly be dreamt of even by the most
daringly imaginative of all the fanciful and auda-
cious architectural day-dreamers who recently
contributed to the Exhibition of Designs in
Westminster-hall. It has never, in fact, been so
much a question with the more rational participa-
tors in the discussion about the building up anew
of a National Gallery worthy of its designation,
whether or not the actual site already occupied
admitted, as a site, of improvement. It has
rather been a matter of hesitation with some
among their number, whether or not, all
things considered, it might perchance be ad-
visable to make the best of a bad bargain by
handing over the hideous structure now disfiguring
that superb site to the present half-occupants of it
-namely, to the It,,yal Academicians ! Instead of
razing the structure to the ground, and setting
about the new one in its place upon a more ample,
and of course upon a mere costly, scale in every
particular. Economy—or rather, as we deem
Parsimony—pointed to the former branch of the
alternative as preferable ; Munificence, and, ac
cording to our view of
also, the matter, Right Reason
to the latter !
Naturally, thus. For by
yielding to the temptitions held out by the °sten-
sibly economic suggestion, we should really and
truly be guilty of two enormous absurdities. We

should be perpetuating about the most conspicuous
disfigrArenienf in the whole of this vast capital—a
metropolis -alri3idy supplied with so many and
RSA- notorious disfigurements I And at the
same tithe., we- should be denying to the New
Nationar Gallery an advantage inseparable (with
all its faults) from the Old one— that of a site, at
once Commanding, Elevated, Central and Pic-
turesque—preferring to this noble site another
site invested with not one of those desirable cha-
racteristics. The proposed new site being any-
thing but commanding—being very low—being
situated actually at one extremity of the metro-
polis—and being in every respect, moreover, the
very reverse of picturesque. Hence, our horror
at the mere mention of Kensington-gore. Hence,
our unhesitating preference for Trafalgar-square.
A preference happily decided upon, at last, by
Her MAJESTY'S Commissioners, if we are to credit
the very explicit statement to that effect given to
the public, this day, in the following words, by one
of our morning contemporaries. "Our readers will
remember," says the Advertiser, " the strenuous
opposition which we offered, eighteen or twenty
months ago, to the proposal which was then
made, in high quarters, to remove the National
Gallery from its present site in Trafalgar-
square to Kensington-gore. We have now the
pleasure of announcing that the Commission that
was appointed to examine in the question
of the most eligible site for the new Na-
tional Gallery, has reported in favour of the
site remaining where it is. The only one of the
Commissioners who voted for the removal of the
National Gallery from Trafalgar-square, was the
Rev. Dr. MILMAN, Dean of St. Paul's, a gentle-
man who has the reputation of being the toady of
a distinguished personage. Mr. FARADAY did not
vote at all, as he could not, for reasons best known
to himself, make up his mind on the subject.
Lord BROUGHTON and the other Commissioners
voted in favour of continuing the building in
its present situation, and their report we are
inlormed, was duly signed on Tuesday last."
Let us hope that the encouraging declara-
tion thus made by our contemporary, may prove,
in the main, to be accurate. Mr. FARADAY'S
objection to vote at all, we •cannot readily admit
as in any way even probable—seeing that his
authoritative evidence was decidedly in favour o;•
the situation of the Trafalgar-square site, as one
in no way calculated to prove injurious to the
works of art stored up in the Great National
Collection. We should gladly, therefore, see this
past of the foregoing statement formally contra-
dicted. We would fain have some satisfactory
explanation of the vote imputed to the Venerable
Dean of St. Paul's, moreever--loving neither to
see an ecclesiastic tuft-hunting, nor a poet
toad eating. The gist of the whole para-
graph, however, is so eminently gratifying in
itself, that even with those drawbacks
we are loathe to doubt of its authenticity. It
affords us such exhilirating promise of retaining
the "finest site" anywhere procurable in all
London for the British National Gallery. It
augurs the speedy removal of one of its most
ludicrous eyesores in the metropolis. And it
opens up to the imagination the weloome prospect
of our ultimately beholding the erection upon
the north side of Trafalgar Square of some
Classic Palace of the Fine Arts worthy of con-
taining the canvass and marble treasures of the
nation, and of confronting from its elevated posi-
tion above Charing Cross, the nolsle Gothic
Palace of the Legislature down., at Wesminster.

Frenchmen are a riddle to us just now. Either
they and we are diametrically opposed in regard
to the very elemetts of manliness or freedom, or
the whole nation must be ready to pl Lee Lours
NAPOLEON in a minority of one in the New Legis-
lative Body. Perhaps, however, both supposi-
tions are partially true, and the result may be
that the EMPEROR will seem to have once more
the Suffrage of all France. Nothing is more certain
than that a circular here, like that of M. BILLAULT,
giving the voters a conga d'elire in favour of nearly
all the old Assembly, accompanied by implied
threats, if the Government nomination were not
generally accepted, would have been fatal to the
political existence of the Minister who issued it,
and that its repetition, if supposed to have been
due to the commands of Royalty, would have
shaken the throne itself. As if all this were not
enough, the Moniteur must needs follow with its
commendations the lucky (or unlucky) fellows who
compose the Corps Legistatif, and bedecks them
with praises till they must glitter from head to
foot in the livery of Imperial laudations.
What the electors must think of themselves,
when told in the circular that they were perfectly

free to choose the Eatranon's nominees, or that
"M. is Prefet would know his duties, and that
Justice would also know how, not less severely,
to perform hers," it is somewhat curious to con-
jecture. But still more curious is it to contem-
plate the Member of the Legislative Body now on
his election tour, and to imagine him surveying
the coat of many colours in which the pater
patrice, the Imperial Saviour of his country, has
clothed him. Wherever he goes'he must fancy
himself a kind of embroidered extract from the
Moniteur ; everywhere tha bourgeoisie will seem
to be gazing on him, and saying—behold the
man whom the EMPEROR thanks, and whom he
says all France is to thank toot The man who
helped to vote nearly a thousand bills ; and
nearly one quarter of a thousand of them, of
Imperial importance I
When he walks among the handsome new
buildings erected by the EMPEROR'S order ;
" Yes," he says to himself, " I voted all the
loans he demanded." When he looks on a rail-
way—" I endorsed the EMPEROR'S' concession."
When he sees the repaired canals and improved
irrigation, " Ah, I too looked at the Bill on that
matter and voted that also." He Roes into • a
Court of Justice—" Yes, I accepted the Ext-
l'EßOleS Bill for the improvements of its admin-
istration "—"
the war, Sebastopol, the democra-
tic loans, the Moniteur says I share the glory of
all "—and even when he calls on his worship, the
Mayor of a municipality. " Ah, here, as the
Moniteur says, is my crowning, glory. I, the
EMPEROR and I at least, have placed the choice
of all the Mayors in the EMPEROR'S own paternal
hands." The temporary ex-deputy must require,
indeed, a larger portion of native modesty than
falls to the lot of most of our neighbours, not t.)
think of himself before all eyes as the great bel-
lows-blower to the great organist.
We do not wish to smile at thinga among our
neighbours—our elections, as a clever Frenchman
showed us last time, are not quite comprehensible
affairs to them. The hustings license, the unre-
strained cries, the merciless questionings of aris-
tocrats, quite as much as of citizen candidates—
a Frenchman hardly understands how "order" can
educe itself from what seems to him such lawless-
ness. To us the wonder' is how any people can
think themselves free, and yet receive the nomi-
nation of their candidates from the throne itself ;
a nomination backed by the praises and the threats,
as they may be needed, of the man who commands
half a million of bayonets.
But what ar© the facts of the case ? Here all
is noyaery. In this country every batch of poli-