The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-27 00:00:00

THE SUN, 140NDON, WEDVESDA.Y EVENING, NOVEVIBER, 27, 1861.

creed and his religion," and because " he despised
the Church !" It is evident that Mr. POTTER, on
the contrary, though he cannot love the Athenasian
Creed as Mr. HODGSON does, nor see the beauties
of its damnatory clauses, still regards the Church
as a great agent for good on the whole, and, there-
fore, though not compelled to pay a rate, sponta-
neously subscribes towards its local expenses.
What would Mr. HODGSON have said could the
case have been reversed, and could Mr. POTTER
have attacked Mr. HODGSON'S conscientious reli-
gious opinions—if, indeed, Mr. HODGSON'S opinions
are matters of conscience not of custom or inheri-
tance merely—because they were unpopular at
Carlisle. Had the electors of Carlisle been a
constituency of MILTONS or NEWTONS—the reader
must pardon the supposition—would not the ana-
thematising candidate of yesterday have been the
candidate complaining of injured innocence if his
maternal creed had been worked against him ?
All the rest was, as far as we know, fair enough
at an election. Railway position, advocacy of
Church-rates, opposition to the Ballot, and so forth,
may be reasonable claims on the voters of half the
electors of Carlisle in their political temper, or stage
of political knowledge, or subjection to political
influence; and cotton might be a fair subject of
banter, when an opponent rested so much of his
ease upon it. But we shall ,be only too well
pleased if the Carlisle election be the last
one at which religious sentiments are hawked
about to a candidate's disadvantage. Lord PAL-
MERSTON himself, with his preference of street
cleaning to day's of humiliation, when the
cholera visits Edinburgh, and hls denial of the ar-
ticle on " original sin," would stand but a poor
chance if he were pitted against orthodox theolo-
gical candidates. Happily in most towns the man
who came forward s% ith the avowal—" I am more
holy than thou; I hold the Athenasian and Nicene
creeds ; I believe to the letter in all Thirty-nine
Article ; and I assert our admirable Liturgy to be
hardly second to the Bible,"--would share the
fate, with his fellow-men, which the highest autho-
rity tells us that the Pharisee does with God.

So Mr. HODGSON must have his fling at the
Ballot—that, however, was perfectly fair. He
had the best reason not to like it ; for small indeed
would be his chance, anywhere, were it the law of
the land. He seemed to intimate as much
by his line of argument. He shows that
he might under the Ballot lose votes, which
he had duly paid for. For he says, "It
enables one man to promise a candidate his vote and
then vote for another; it enables such a scoundrel to
take money from one candidate and then vote for
another; and it enables some lower scamp still to
take a bribe from both candidates and vote for
neither." Excellent! We agree to the letter with
Mr. HODGSON. We should give as reasons for the
ballot these very facts. Mr. HODGSON best knows
why he thinks it a grievance that the pledged or
purchased voter should be able to deceive the man
who has brought influence or sovereigns to bear on
his vote ; or why it is so great a grievance that a
scoundrel may jilt the two scoundrels who have
both parted with their money for what they
would not dare to purchase except in the
dark, and the • purchasing of which made
them criminals. Could we suspect Mr. HODG-
SON at Carlisle or elsewhere to have given a
single sovereign to secure a vote, we should be sure
he looked anxiously to the polling book for the ex-
peeted name, and devoutly thanked heaven that no
ballot box permitted the rogue he bought to fail in
completing the bargain.
For ourselves we beg to thank Mr. HODOSON,

with his not inconsiderable experience, for the
reasons which he thus assigns for open votnx—for
L., 44 4.444. Lucy tCzclayroot.. iw ue-
cause if a debtor of one of my wealthier supporters
is required to give me his vote, give it he must.
Because, again, if I give a man £5, or when the
contest seems so close as a majority of one or two,—
£lOO for his vote, vote for me he must. And
again, because if I give him £lO and Mr. POTTER
follows me with £lO, the man cannot
get off by voting for neither. Such, em-
bodied in living forms must be the meaning of
Mr. HODGSON'S arguments. And they seem to us,
to be admirably telling ones for the ballot. We
hays not indeed heard that a shilling was spent in
actual bribery at Carlisle, but if it has been Mr.
lIODGSON proved conclusively, that had voting
been by ballot the candidates and their supporters
would have been greater fools than men usually are
on such occasions. Looking at the whole the Ballot
Society will, we trust, present a vote of thanks to
Mr. HODGSON. We have always thought the
chief efficacy of the ballot would be in preventing
intimidation, though it is also very useful against
bribery. The latter opinion is now conclusively
attested by a most excellent witness—" no purchased
man," says Mr. HODGSON, "could be trusted to vote
for his purchaser." Under which circumstances,
we submit, purchasers would be scarce.

We are very much afraid that the Government
have got their policy into a cleft stick upon the
subject of Reform. If they bring forward no pro-
posal whatever for the improvement of our system
of popular representation next session—why do
they occupy their present position upon the Trea
Bury bench? If, on the contrary, they do once
more adventure upon the introduction to Parlia-
ment of a new and Revised Reform Bill—will they
carry it ? In either contingency of the alternative
the answer—to say the least of it—is likely to be
sufficiently awkward !
How difficult, if not hopeless, is tho position
into which they, more than any one else, have
contrived to bring the problem of Parliamentary
Reform they have themselves plainly indicated.
For example—there is the memorable fact that
the arch champion of the cause of Parliamentary
Reform (in:the estimation of the Whig party), that
Lord JOHN RUSSELL, of all men, is Lord JOHN
RUSSELL now no longer! As if intimating quite
plainly to every one whom it might possibly con-
cern within the House of Commons, or without the
House of Commons, that he regards his labours in
behalf of Reform to have pretty well terminated,
the noble lord quits his post in the popular branch
of the Legislature, and retires to the otium
cum dignitate of the House of Peers as Earl Rus-
SELL ! Almost in the very act of so doing, more-
over, the noble lord avows almost wittily, but at the
same time very disappointingly, that no satisfactory
measure for the improvement of the representative
system in this country can be reasonably looked for
until the cause itself shall have been lifted upon a
wave of public opinion sufficiently powerful to carry
it over the Bar of the House of Lords.

But—to the end of rousing Public Opinion to
that height, and strength, and impetuosity—how
are her MAJESTVS Ministers, the members of the
present Reform Administration, acting ? Why,
with so much of apathy in regard to the interests
of Reform, with such practical evidence on their
part of a feeling 43f almost despair, certainly of utter
hopelessness, that —no wonder that cry was raised
last week by oz ,e of the Southwark constituency,
while Mr. LAMRD was in the midst of delivering
his very able apt tech, to wit, that Lord RUSSELL,
and Mr, GIBSON., and Mr. VILLIERS, while unques-
tionably Great k ,eformers, were also, at the same

time, were at any rate indisputably of late years,
very Slow Reformers.
It is impossible not to recollect now with a cer-
tain feeling of indignation that while only a year or
two back the hon. member for Birmingham was
working physically like a Horse in the cause of
Reform, and exerting himself intellectually to the
very utmost in that cause, like an earnest and Reso-
lute Man as he is—he was left almest entirely
alone to do this! Immense audiences were ad-
dressed by him in all parts of the country, and by
him alone in the interests of Reform. His resplen-
dent eloquence was dedicated heart and soul to the
furtherance of that great cause. Often and often,
it is true, (as we ourselves never once hesitated to
indicate at the time) with glaring errors of judgment
in the manner of Mr. BRIM'S furtherance of it—
but always, even at these times, we are perfectly
well satisfied, to the very best of his ability, and
with the most conscientious regard on the speaker's
part to the cherishing of the popular interests—so
far, at least, as he could understand them. All the
while scarcely another finger being raised in advo-
cacy of the Reform Question—so that if Mr. BRIGHT
had then "a clear stage and no favour"—ho had it
all to himself ! From the odium of any participa-
tion whatever in this shameful apathy on the part
of our leading reformers—Mr. COBDEN, we must
remember, at once is spared—by the recollection
of the fact that ho was unhappily at the time very
ill, or at any rate so seriously indisposed
as to be almost entirely " invalided." So far
as one man could labour in the good
cause, Mr. BRIGHT laboured. But how was it likely
that any one individual, however gifted or however
courageous, could effect in a few weeks, single-
handed, what it had taken a whole generation of
eminent men labouring resolutely "together" and
" with a will" several years to effect in the instance
of the former Reform Bill ; namely, to carry it for-
ward in its course upon a wave of public opinion
so powerful that it was borne at last, as Lord Rus-
SELL expresses it, over the bar of the House of
Lords. And this in spite of the determination ma-
nifested to obstruct its course by the most formi-
dable Opposition ? Again, it was clearly unfair
and unreasonable to expect that any man—even Mr.
BRlGHT—could do, in the interests ofiParliamentary
form, in a few weeks what it took a whole League
(and such a League !) several years to do in the in-
terests of the Free Trade Principles ! More parti-
cularly when the task requiring to be got through
was all the more difficult (not in the latter, but in
the later instance)—when it was not so much the
reason of so very many that had to be convinced, as
the apathy of so very many that had to be dissipated.
The fact being quite notorious that at this very
epoch, when no effort is being made in the cause of
Parliamentary Reform—every one, without excep-
tion, is infavour of the Reform of Parliament. It is
only a question of degree and proportion. After the
Reform Bill laid upon the table of the
House of Commons by Mr. DISRAELI in
the name of himself and his Ministerial
colleagues, it is needless to insist upon it that the
Tories or Conservatives are as distinctly committed
to the cause of Reform as ever have been either the
Whigs or the Radicals. Mr. HENLEY himself is
avowedly and resolutely A Reformer. It is only a
question with him—and a very anxious question too
—whereabouts to draw the line of demarcation, so
that there may not be an attempt at an ugly rush
to get across it sooner than might be anticipated.
As to the origin of the Dilemma in which our

Liberal Administrators now find themselves placed
in regard to the Itef3rm Question, we have never
had two opinions about it. For that dilemma they
have no one in the wide world to thank but them-
selves. First of all they grasp at too ,And
tnen Eney - _ toy rust place,
they leave Mr. BRIGHT in the lurch quit© com-
placently, to toil on in the advocacy of Parliamen-
tary Reform as he best can—by himself! In the

next place, when they have got their Conservative
opponents in office pledged to Reform, actually

submitting a Reform measure to them for their ex-
amination and approval—what course do they
pursue, forsooth, under these remarkable, under
these wholly unparalleled circumstances ? Why,
in one sense, the verfmagnanimous course adopted
by the Dog in the 111 anger and in another
sense the wonderfully prudent course adopted by
another canine wiseacre, the hero of the old apo-
logue about the Dog and the Shadow ! Instead of
rejoicing (for the good of the cause and of the
country !) in the fact that—at last—the Tories had
conceded the Necessity for Reform, the magnani-
mous Whig Opposition refused to allow any one
the right to give Reform but themselves ! Instead
of holding fast on by that good, substantial, and
succulent Reform Bill, that might have been
"cooked" (in committee) into a very agreeable and
appetising banquet if they had so pleased—No, my
Lord JOHN and his followers must needs drop it
altogether in the current of passing events, to snap
at the shadow outline of a larger measure in the
shape of those egregiously deceptive Resolutions.
The result being—as we knew only too painfully
—that of this Large Liberal Measure of Reform we
have caught just exactly—Nothing !

AIR. AND MRS. CHARLES MATHEWS

AT 110.31. E.

The most delightful Actor of the Age—Charles Ma-
thews—on Monday appeared before a London Audience for
the first time as the giver of An Entertainment. What was
so familiar to the last generation is now therefore to become
familiar also to this; videlicet—MATHEWS AT HOME I
Theatrical Annalists will henceforth have additional reason
to celebrate quite as intimately together as they have ever
done those famous dramatists the Two Colmans, George
Colman the Elder and George Colman the Younger—those
inimitable monologists, the Two Mathews, Charles Ma-
thews the Elder and Charles Mathews the Younger. A
welcome to the last-mentioned we here give "with a heart
and a half"—as cordially as the crowded audience assembled
on Monday in Her Majesty's Concert Room in the Hay-
market gave him their greeting with many a ringing round
of acclamations.

If anyone ever had a doubt about Charles Mathews being
a favourite, a personal favourite of each member of the
Public at Large, that doubt might then have been effec-
tually dissipated. It must have done any man's heart
good to hear it. So spontaneous and earnest was the ap-
plause that welcomed the Entertainer and his accomplished
wife upon the rising of the curtain. For, although we
have spoken of Mr. Mathews— and not inaccurately—as a
Monologist, just as we may say "his father was so before
him," ho is yet something more than a monologist. Again
and again, throughout the evening, he has the stage en
tirely to himself—his entertainment then being strictly a
Monologue. But repeatedly also throughout the evening
his soliloquies are agreeably intercepted by the entrance of
Mrs. Charles Mathews—when of course the Monologue
breaks into Duologue. And how well they act together,
how well they play thus into each ether's hands, anyone
who longs for a hearty laugh can henceforth learn any day
in the week, literally at pleasure.
" Mathews at Home" now takes its place securely
among the most popular of our London Entertain.
ments. It is peculiarly welcome to us all now that poor
Albert Smith has disappeared from the scene—leaving a
hiatus that, ever since his premature and lamented death,
it will be considered no disparagement whatever either to
Mr. Wcodin or Mr. and Mrs. German Reed to say, has
sadly wanted filling up. Here, in truth, is at last recognis-
able that mysterious something so often alluded to in mer-
cantile prospectuses as the long-looked-for desideratum.
We have attained it at length among our metropolitan
amusements, substantially and delightfully, in Mr. and
Mrs. Charles Mathews' AT HOME,

The Entertainment now given nightly under this name,
may be described as a Spoken and Illustrated Autobio-
graphy. And, in this respect, it is just unlike anything
that ever went before it. Mr. Charles Mathews, in fact,
here tells the Story of bis Life—recounts his recollections
and experiences. The printed programme calls them
"Reminiscences, in Eight Chapters." These eight chap-

ters being divided into two parts. Part I. entitled " The
Romance," Part 11. "The Reality." Beginning some-
thing after the fashion of David Copperfield, who heads the
first chapter of his personal history with those words, " I
am Born "—Charles Mathews starts from the date of his
birth, to wit, the 26th of December, 1803. It should have
been remarked, by the way, that, upon the rising of the
curtain, Mr. and Mrs. Mathews are discovered quite en
lainille seated at the breakfast table At Home, in Gore
Lodge, Fulham. Their elegant sitting room there is, in
fact, the arena of the entertainment from beginning to end.
An extraordinary variety of exquisite little glimpses of
home and foreign scenery being intermitcntly opened up
to view through occasionally dis-parted curtains at the
back of the stage—revealing to us more illustrations of
the "At Home" than we care to number up, painted
by Mr. 0' Connor from Original Sketches by Mr.
Charles Mathews himself. Among these—there is his
father's charming little home-retreat of Ivy Cottage on
Highgate-hill—where, as a boy, Charles Mathews the
younger obtained his introduction to all the first wits of the
day—George Colman, Theodore Hook, Lord Alvanley,
James and Horace Smith, Sir Walter Scott, Coleridge,
Moore, Campbell, Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt, and a crowd
of other celebrities, Afterwards, when he comes to describe
his excursion into Italy as one of the entourage of Lord
Blessington, we hear tell of others among his famous
friends and intimate acquaintance—including among them :
Lady Blessington, Count D'Orsay, Miss Power, Lord
Byron, Denon, Sir William Gell, Dr. Millingen, the Abbe
Campbell, and Sir William Drummond. We should have
liked to have heard more, by-the-bye, than the mere men-
tion of Lord Byron's name, as it were purely par paren-
these. Perhaps hereafter Mr. Mathews may interpolate

here.

some allusion to the noble poet, comparable in its way—in
its picturesque and graphic vividness—to that graceful por-
traiture of Count Alfred D' Orsay, the incidental introduc-
tion of which elicited last evening so very cordial a wel-
come from the audience. The pictorial illustrations at this
part are introduced with an almost lavish abundance : com-
prising in the list of them—the Mole at Naples, the Villa
Arconati, the Scuola di San Marco, the Amphitheatre at
Pola, and the lovely Act Drop at the Marquis of Nor-
manby's private Teatro San Clemente at Florence. But
immeasurably beyond any pictorial delineation, are the per-
sonal illustrations, or embodiments of character, scattered

throwrh this most varied and delimhtful Entertainmo”,
„., pc/mg, v trbuU nnnseit to be a
more consummate artist than he did last night in his really
wonderful impersonations—first of all of ItINALDo, a la
Napolitana, the old fellow in spectacles, reading Ariosto to
the lazzaroni, declaiming, explaining, gesticulating, sing-
ing, with the volubility of an improvisatore—and secondly,
and beyond everything else, the gem of the whole evening,
to our mind, the ITALIAN STREET PREACHER ! This last
being in truth a perfect marvel of earnest, graceful, impetu-
ous, impassioned declamation. Another, but a very different
character personated by Mr. Charles Mathews was in its
way too, very remarkable, viz., the provincial actor and ex.
manager, Barndoor Fowler, Esq., With Imitations of
Himself—that is of Charles Mathews in propria persona in
some of his more renowned characters, among them Sir
Charles Coldstream. The lady in her turn—and we are
certain she will be the last to find fault with us for giving
her gifted husband precedence in this record of the First
Nigat of Mathews at tome—Mrs. Charles Mathews on her
side sustains to the full her reputation as a versatile and
accomplished artiste—representing in succession Master
Pumps, the blubbering school fag; A Lady's Maid under
Difficulties ; Mrs. Dubbin, the irate landlady ; Miss Ophelia
Melrose, the tragic actress ; and, above all, a sort of Trans-
atlantic Screamer, in the shape of Jemima , the Yankee
Gal. How various the whole entertainrairts may be yet

further conjectured, when we say that Charles Mathews
sings, among other things, a la Terlet, a charming chanson,
called Decant un Juge Excellent, and his own sweet little
Welch love ditty, " Jenny Jones," and that he and Mrs.
Charles Mathews dance together with perfect grace and
agility the Tarantella Napolitana. " The Romance" of
these same personal recollections comes to a close about the
date of Mr. Mathews' first appearance upon the London
Stage as a Light Comedian, namely, on the Gth of Novem-
ber, 1835—after he has done dreaming of being a punter,
as he once did when wiling away a happy leisure time
with his friend, Sir Edwin Landseer, at the Duchess of
Bedford's hospitable Bothies of Glenfishie I Long after ho
has done with his original profession—that of an architect,
a profession in which he was ably tutored in the studio of
Augustus Pugin, the Great Gothic Revivalist. The sober
" Realities" of our Artist's theatrical experiences are not
by any means the least instructive, as they are also beyond
a doubt amongst the most amusing, of his personal recol-

loctions, For his Father's sake—for his Wife's sake--for
his own sake—Charles Mathews the younger wins from us

that cordial applause that anyone might have pretty confi-
dently prophecied would be, could alone be, the weed of
his Entertainment. It seems an odd thing to welcome a
man at his own home—but we are here constrained to do
so nevertheless We herewith welcome " Mathews At
Home" as earnestly and heartily as the public at largo are
now safe to welcome him nightly so long as Mr. and Mrs.
Mathews shall continue to be At Home in the Haymarket.

Lady Alvanley has joined the circle meeting the
Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, at Alnwick Castle,
Northumberland.

Loss OF ANOTHER HULL STEAMER.—The news
of the lOss of Messrs. Wilson's new steamer Hobo had
scarcely been received before another telegram reached
Messrs. Z. C. Pearson and Co. from Captain Vickerman,
announcing the loss of their steamer Beatrice, which was
only placed on the Rotterdam line on Sunday night, in
place of the steamer Enchantress, which was lost last week
with 16 hands. She had been engaged for some time past
in the Stettin trade, and was a favourite steamer on the
line. She was of about 500 tons burden, and of 70-horse
power. The telegram received states that the Beatrice, on
arriving at the Helvoet, was driven during a strong gale on
to the stone-pier there, rebounding from which she went on
to a bank, from which she slipped into deep water, and sank
in less than half-an-hour, her crew succeeding in saving
part of her cargo, and also themselves.
ENLARGING THE ADMIRALTY.—FormaI notices
have been issued by the Board of Works and Public Build-
ings of their intention to apply to Parliament next session
for an act enabling them to acquire the necessary space for
enlarging the Admiralty at Whitehall. In the inquiry last
session before the Commons' Select Committ m on the
Board of Admiralty, the principal witnesses agreed that, as
in France, so here the whole Naval Department should be
concentrated within ono building. fir J. Graham stated
that he considered it of primary importance, and that before
he left office in 1855 ho brought before the Government a
scteme for this purpose, proposing an encroachment upon
the Admiralty garden. When the Crimean war came, ho
found it necessary to remove the Surveyor (now Controller)
of the Navy from Somerset-house to Whitehall, for the
sake of constant communication with him, and to take the
residences of two Lords of the Admiralty fcr the purpose;
but this distinction of one of the chief officers of the navy
from the rest gave rise to such jealousies that the step must
be regarded as an error of judgment. He stated, also, that
while providing room at Whitehall for the rest of the So-
merset-house branch of the department, it would be neces.
sary, if the Board of Admiralty is to remain a Board, that
there should be residences for the First Lord, a Naval Lord,
and the Secretary, so that there may always be a Board on
the spot. But in settling the plan for the new buildings
I the question may be raised whether the Board is t,.) =thane
or not,

"
LATEoI

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA
We give the following telegram with all due re-

serve: --

SOUTHAMPTON, NGl'. 27.
The Royal Mail steamship La Plata has arrived

Messrs. sliddel and Mason, the Confederate
Commissioners, were forcibly taken out of the Royal
Mail Company's steamer Trent. while on her pas-
sage from Havannah to St. Thomas by the Ameri-
can war ship San Jacinto."

AGR AM, Nov. 27.

The General Congregation of Croatia has, under
certain reservations, ordered the military levies to
be made in Croatia.

The same Congregation has also notified to all
the functionaries that all official correspondence is
to be conducted in the Croatian language.

BERLIN, Nov. 26.
The case of Colonel Patzke, of the police force,
was tried to-day before a jury.
Colonel Patzke was sentenced to four weeks im-
prisonment for having used a false passport. He
was immediately removed from the prison in which
he had been confined previously to being brought
to trial.

Kohler was sentenced to five years,' and Schmidt
to four years' imprisonment with hard labour.
Lieutenant Greif, of the police force, was