The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-17 00:00:00

the cessation of that scandalous intervention against
Italian unity and peace—the Occupation of Rome.
Italians have shown in every way that they
consider Rome to be their capital. The
shouts of the populace, the votes of the Chambers,
the announcements of statesmen, the proclamations
of GARIBALDI, all point to Rome, as the capital
of the kingdom. The Romans themselves are eager
to take the position, at the same time as they exe-
crate a temporal Pope and his execrable Minister ;
and all the other Italians are willing to give it to
them. And who and what stands in the way ?
No one and nothing but the Emperor Louis
NAPOLEON and his army.
We are told on all hands that the end
is at hand, that the " Roman Question "
must be settled, and so forth. We have
been told so so often, and been willing to hope it,
that nothing but the sight of the :settlement
will gain our faith. The EMPEROR has held off,
doubtless, for two reasons. One, it flatters his prides
and that of the French nation, to be the Pope of
the POPE himself. Another, that he desires, if he
dares, to make another territorial bargain. Genoa
and Sardinia have been repeatedly talked of; the
former as the "natural" adjunct of Nice, the latter
as the proper accompaniment of Corsica. Sardinia,
too, would have the advantage of being worth fifty
Maltas, and of enabling the EMPEROR to neutralise
completely our power there. Perhaps, indeed we
would fain hope so, our Government have informed
him that a war with England would be the imme•
diate consequence of an attempt on his part to take
possession of Sardinia ; if so, we may well believe
that he will, to the last, stick to Rome, in order to
mortify us and Italy; and when "the last" will arrive
no mortal can tell. Spleen and pride we fear will
keep the French at Rome as long as they can stay
there. Rome will be cursed with an Ecclesias-
tical Prince, detested by all his subjects;
brigands, the pests of Southern Italy will find a
safe asylum; a people will be held in slavery; and
the capital of a kingdom occupied by its professed
friends ; and all to gratify the unworthiest motives
of a man who commands the " half million of sol-
. diem." However, we suppose there is nothing for
it but the tedious process of awaiting what shame
can effect even with so heartless a man.

The Appropriation of Seats Bill, standing as it
does first upon the list on the business paper of the
House of Commons for this evening, demands some
few passing words of comment from the journalist
hardly less imperatively than it requires the instant
attention of the Legislature. Whatever may be
affected to the contrary by Ministers, there can be
little doubt but that the vote of last Monday has
struck out, at a single blow, one of the most vital
portions of the measure now before Parliament—
namely, the perverse refusal of the House of Com-
mons to enfranchise the numerous and wealthy
population of Chelsea and Kensington. Than this
petulant rejection of the clause according one of the
four vacant seats to the west end of the metropolis,
nothing, indeed, could well have been more perverse
in itself, or more obviously unreasonable. So un-
reasonable and so perverse is it as a hasty deci-
sion of the Commons, in a moment of irritation,
almost we had said of hallucination, that it is already
recognised to be simply a question of time, when
that division shall be revised by the popular branch
of the Legislature—a consideration suggestive
consequently of the possible advisability of delay, so
as to afford the House of Commons in this manner the
opportunity of reconsidering the unfair conclusion
arrived at a week since so very precipitately. Here
is avast, wealthy, industrious, and for the most part,
we may safely say, an enlightened town com-
munity, numbering altogether no less than 134,000,
as the aggregate amount of its population—here
is a newly projected metropolitan borough, within
which a larger amount of Income Tax is paid
annually than is contributed to the Ex-
chequer by any one of the two hundred and forty
cities and boroughs now enjoying the privilege of
the elective franchise, and, in right of that, respec-
tively returning members to the Imperial Legisla-
ture! Yet it is this communitywhich is now summarily
denied the power proposed to be accorded to it that,
namely, of sending henceforth one representative
to the Commons House of Parliament ! Instead of
conceding the electoral franchise to Chelsea and
Kensington, the House, it is suggested, should ac-
cord that boon to the London University ! The Home
Secretary's proposal was thus cavalierly set aside
by the division of last Monday evening, and in place
of that—in order to fill up the hiatus thereby left in
the Government measure—Sir J. GRAHAM'S coun-
ter proposition is to be taken into consideration, that
namely by the acceptance of which, the House of
Commons would yield up in answer to the demand
made for it by the University of London, the One
Seat begrudged to Chelsea and Kensington, with
their 134,000 inhabitants ! That the London Uni-
versity has good and valid claims to the privilege
of enfranchisement there are surely but very few
who would venture for one moment to deny. But
that Chelsea and Kensington have in many re-
spects prior and superior claims for the same privi-
lege of enfranchisement must be allowed to
be equally beyond the reach of deliberate
contradiction. It is because of the recognition of
the false position in which the House of Commons
itself is placed, and in which the Ministers them-
selves also are placed by reason of the petulant
and perverse vote of Monday last, that the notion
has been bruited about in the interval that
both the House and the Government may be re-
lieved from their simultaneous embarrassment in
this matter by a summary postponement of the
untilßill
in on
next
one point
That notion has un-
doubtedlypoint of view its advantages—
it would, for example, revive the very reasonable
hopes so unexpectedly extinguished by the adverse
decision of Monday in regard to the enfranchise-
ment of Chelsea and Kensington. But there are
reasons also upon the other side clearly recognis-
pressing reasons, rendering it
able, urgent and
matter of some solicitude that even yet the flawed
Bill of Sir GEORGE Lewis may not be indignantly
set aside by Ministers almost, as on
e may say,
upon the very morrow of its introduction!

Skirmishing,
not serious fighting, is all we yet
hear of from America_ Both sides are, in fact, little
prepared yet for any great movement. Their troops
are all ill-drilled, and after they have acquired regi-
mental training, they will still need some experience
to enable them to manceuvre on any large scale.
Hitherto all has been the work of comparatively
small detachments; a considerable number of men are
indeed concentrated near Washington, and as large a
number are drawing round Harper's Ferry. But
when it becomes requisite to move forward the
whole line on hostile territory, we shall see what
capacity the Northern General has for operating
on the large scale. At present the armies of both
parties have a perfectly friendly rear. The North
will soon have to keep up its communication
through unfriendly towns and villages, that is,
assuming that the majority of Virginians are really
unfriendly to the Union. With an ill-ordered
Commissariat, the soldiers will be tempted, it must
be feared, to provide for themselves on the spot at
otfhienncooene
tnetme
pitliazteends.
theweexpeanr
es e ,t
opledr htahpast,
advance
across the Potomac did not take place owing to a

report of Secession troops being concentrated in
great numbers for an attack on Alexandria, though
no such attack took place. The concentration of
large numbers on Harper's Ferry is said to become
so imposing that the Secessionist garrison is con-
templating flight without resistance. Besides the
petty skirmishes there is nothing, however, of
fighting, still the rumour continues of an early and
grand advance into Virginia, as far as Fairfax first
—ultimately to Richmond, before which the Seces-
sionists are to withdraw as they are to do at Har-
per's Ferry. We can only chronicle these reported
Paulo post futuruin accounts, we would not vouch
for even their probable accuracy.
It seems to be better established that the slaves
are showing in increased numbers their preference
for General BUTLER'S entrenchments to their old
masters plantations ; the former being, doubtless,
as far as mere labour is concerned, much harder
work. This is, to Englishmen, by far the most
gratifying feature in the war at present. The North
seems astonished that Anti-Slavery England can
show so much favour to the South ; indeed, that
we do not come forward to aid the North. Our
favour to the South is such, that we only
wish for it that the war may eman-
cipate the slaves for them. If we show any
indifference to the North, it is on account of their
only attempting to amalgamate Slave States and
Slavery again by one " glorious Constitution."
But if they chose to advance as an army of libera-
tion—if they will but proclaim that every degree
and minute of latitude reached by the Federal
Army must henceforth be a limit to Slavery and
an extension of free-soil, then, indeed, they will
arouse in England and its Parliament an enthu-
siasm like that with which we watched the pro-
gress of GARIBALDI and CIALDINI.

It is only now that we are begnning to realise in
earnest the magnitude of that terrible and momen-
tous experiment upon which we adventured more
than a dozen years ago in the treatment of our
criminal population. That it was essentially an
experiment, and that it was an experiment more-
over of a very perilous character, was not simply
suspected, was distinctly and vividly recognised at
the outset by the more sagacious observers at the
period when the Legislature, we yet cannot but
think, most rashly and precipitately adventured
upon it. The dreadful reality, that it was at best
no more than an experiment, has been gradually
forcing itself upon the recognition of even the least
observant members of the community during all
these years in which the new system has been in
actual operation amongst us. It is now, we say,
that it is being realised, however, in its full magni-
tude by all classes of observers alike, the most
vigilant and the least vigilant indiscriminately.
The substitution of penal servitude at home for
penal servitude beyond the seas in our remotest
colonies, for the most part actually at our antipodes
—was in a manner, it will be remembered, thrust
by the sheer force of events, thrust it might be
almost said irresistibly, thrust at any rate most
imperatively upon the Imperial Legislature. Gra-
dually in the progress of years our various penal
settlements, even the largest amongst them,became
overstocked with a felon population. The criminals
of the United Kingdom, from having numbered
some 27,000 in 1822, had increased and multiplied
by 1848 to a frightful aggregate of very nearly
74,000. Out of the 27,000 criminals in 1822, from
1,200 to 1,500 required to be dealt with by trans-
portation ; whereas, out of the 74,000 criminals in
1848, from 3,000 to 4,000 were set apart by the
law for the same punishment. The colonies, alarmed
not unnaturally for their own future, besought Par-
liament to interpose between them and the other-
wise unavoidable horror of this impending ruin, the
ruin consequent upon any such appalling and demo-
ralising surplusage amongst them of the criminal over
the non-criminal population. Thenceforth, after
1848, the Legislature decided, upon the spur of the
moment, and influenced in its decision by the panic
then but very recently produced by the commercial
crisis that had supervened upon the political con-
vulsion of the principal States of Christendom
the Legislature hurriedly resolved that after 1848
all the convicts were to be sent to what was then, it
seemed very aptly designated, Van Dieman's Land.
So that the rest of the colonies were relieved, it is
true, by this apparently simple but really in itself
most clumsy arrangement, but only relieved, it
should be remembered, at the expense of that one
ill-starred colony in particular. The result was
only what might have been expected, but it was
so far more rapidly than could by any have been
expected. Van Dieman's Land threatened speedily
to become little better than a Land of Demons
The hell upon earth before visible in that lovely
but polluted antarctic paradise, known not to fame
but to infamy as Norfolk Island, was being fast
emulated. As such, as a very sink of abomination, it
gave to view visible and appreciable tokens that—
unless the Legislature should again, and that
moreover very promptly interpose for the pre-
vention of some terrible catastrophe—Norfolk
Island, we say, gave to view visible and
appreciable tokens (the tokens of a contrast
absolutely favourable to itself in comparison)
of being eclipsed in all its lurid horrors by the
superior atrocity of Van Dieman's Land. Every-
body remembers the little episode in that
transition - epoch in the history of this dread-
ful Convict Difficulty—everybody remembers
the casual incident of the shipload of felons sent
off by the bewildered Government to the Cape of
Good Hope, and of the determined attitude by
which the armed and enraged Cape colonists
repelled the landing of the human freight they
abhorred ! Baffled in these attempts at the national
extrication from the Convict Difficulty, the startled
Legislature, guided in their blundering designs by
what we have already termed only too accurately a
bewildered Government, hurried at once into the
opposite extreme, determined to do summarily
what they actually did soon afterwards—namely,
to abolish altogether the system of transportation.
That is the experiment, the perilous and momen-
tous experiment that we have been trying now
systematically in the very midst of us during the
fomofua nen
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agrueei
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chief part of this last decade, during years of pro
Espe-
cially, and above all
to the distinguished Ad mu
now more than twelve
that Department. Rememb • entrusted
ep a w
r tm e
endtwo. ui
tbht ntohte,
, we cannot but feel persuaded,
muustrator who has, for
years past, presided over
Remembering the diversity and
the scope of the changes which during these 1 t
twelve years have marked our varying
and fluctua-
ting system of Convict Discipline—remembering
the extraordinarily perilous character of what we
cannot but still regard as the wonderfully rash
experiment already referred to in these remarks
—we do not hesitate to assert that it is, to our
mind, in a very great measure attributable to the
resolute determination and to the conscientious
devotion to his duties of that energetic servant of
the Crown, that the rash experiment to which we
are here alluding has not before this led to results
of the most disastrous character. As Chairman of
the Board of Directors at the head of the Convict
Department, Major-General Sir JOSHUA JEBB has,
ever since 1848, presided over that Department