The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-11 00:00:00

Aoting Manager—Mr. Win. Smith.

A STLEY'S ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE.-
Proprietor and Manager, Mr. WM. BATTY.

Immense success of " Turpin's Ride to York."

A Grand Morninz Performance will take place on Friday,
Feb. 15, commencinm at two o'clock with the Pantomime.

THIS EVENING, will be reproduced TURPIN'S RIDE
TO YORK, Axil) THE DEATH OF BLACK BESS, in
which the Brothers Edwin will appear with their celebrated
Steed Black Bess.

To be succeeded by Scenes in the Arena, supported by
talented Parisian and, British Artistes.
• •

Concluding with Batty's Prize Equestian Comic Panto-
mime, for Good Little Boys and Girls, by T. L. Greenwood,
entitled HARLEQUIN AND THE WONDERFUL
HORSE ; or, Percinet and Grociosa, the Ugly Duchess and
the Greedy King, produced with Gorgeous Scenery, by Mr.
Cuthbert, new Costumes and Appointments, and introducing
in the comae scenes Batty's Prize Equestrian Harlequinade,
and the celebrated Old Bob Ridley.
Box-office open daily om till 4
Stage Mafrnager— 11
Mr. W. Wrar.
Director of the Arena—Mr. Pearson.
Commence at 7.

CANTERBURY-HALL CONCERTS!-! -
A Grand Selection from Verdi's Opera,

IL CORSARO,
consisting of the following Morceaux:—
Preludio.
Coro Scena ed Aria. "Tutto parca. Sorridere"
Coro di Odalische " Oh qual perenne"'
Cavatina "Vola talor dal Careere"
Coro ed inno
Scena ed Aria.
Terzetto Finale "Voi tacete io non"
will shortly be produced, in the orignal key and Italian
language—the first time of ➢erformance in this country—in
addition to the usual attractions.
Mr. F. JONGIIMANS, Musical Director.
Also, in preparation, Selections from Verdi's New Operas,
'Ern Ballo in Maschera," "Simon Boecane;ra ;" and Flo-
w's celebrated Opera of "Stradella."

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
DAY.—Morning, 3h. Bm.—Afternoon, 3h. 26m.
To-mon-now. -Morning, 3h. 39m.—Afternoon; 31i754m.

TH.It WEATHER...-SITN OPTICS, FEB. 10, 1861.

THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
41—highest since noon yesterday.
37—lowesi this morning and during the night.
39—this day at noon.
BmtomETnn-30.29 ; a rise of nearly three-quarters of
an inch since yesterday.
WlND—North-Easterly—fresh and cold ; with fine sun-
shiny weather.

FEB. 11.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADS.
41—highest since noon yesterday.
31—lowest this morning and during the night.
15—this day at noon.
BAROMETER-29.94 ; falling rapidly.
WIND—N.-Easterly—fresh; with bitter cold weather,
and large flakes of snow occasionally, with sunshine.

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THE SUN.
LONDON, MONDAY, FEB. 11, 1861.

The Government has dropped Reform. It has
at last subsided into its own natural self on this
subject. Ever since Lord JOHN RUSSELL began
his Reform Act Amendments, it was pretty certain
that not inclination but party necessity was the
rCa:;:)11. His heart was in Reform Act Finality,
not Reform Act Amendment ; but the straits of
the Whigs compelled them to hoist again the
Reform flag, till they even drove the Tories to
tallow their example, and we now look back with
a smile at the thought of the Right Hon. BEN-
JAMIN DISRAELI actually standing on the floor of
the House of Commons with a Reform Bill in
his hands. But time has unmasked the whole
thing. Not even Lord JOHN'S tears, when one of
his innocents was sacrificed, can convince us that
his sorrow went beyond grief for the loss, or
apprehended loss, of political influence or
power.

And we believe, as he sarcasti-

tally remarked in his recent speech, that,
no man is better content than he, that his Act of
1832 should, up to this time at least, have the stamp
of finality. When all were unwilling or cold, why
should he trouble himself further. His colleagues
in office, with an exception or two, hated Reform—
the House of Commons as a body hated it, as the
death-warrant of this Pat liament—the Whigs hated
it as Whigs—the Tories hated it as Tories, and
through their leader even absolved Lord JOHN on
the point of honour though he had turned them out
on the question—the greater part even of the ad-
vanced Liberals were glad to get rid of it, and did
most of all to talk it out of the House last session
—the populous towns and places deserving more re-
resentatives, did not even petition for better distri-
bution of seats—above all, the working classes whom
it Was
Proposed to enfranchise, thought it better to
strike and
ruin themselves for nine hours a day,
than to ask for the privilege of sending representa-
tives to the Rouse of Commons—even the county
£lO householders were mute, If, therefore, Mr.
DISRAELI will excuse Lord JOHN, we know not
how any one else can throw a stone at him. Least
of all, certainly Mr. BRIGHT—he had a Reform
Till ready in his
pocket in 1859 which was to have
contended with Lord DERny's, but we have heard
.
mottling of it from that day to thisWe believe
the truth to be that Mr. BRIGHT finds
the middle
classes, who, under the aristocracy, have now all
power, opposed to the enfranchisement of their
workmen. Whether wisely for themselves, may
well be doubted ; hut the fact that they are so
hardly admits of dispute.
However, the course the Government has taken
has one good consequence. It clears the ground
for the mNI who propose substantial Reforms, not
ambitious Reform Bil?s. Two of these have cer-
tainly precedencec of all others, one in virtue of its
long standing before the hlouse—the Ballot; the
other, has the prestige of having beau
by two

, ,

by the House of Commons—Mr. LOCKE KING'S
motion for the £lO franchise in the counties.
Besides these, two Members have given notice
of Bills for extension of the Franchise in Boroughs;
they will, we suppose, combine thee bills into one,
for Mr. BAINES and Mr. DICEY SEYMOUR are not
likely to differ seriously in their views on such a
subject.

We venture to submit to our leading Reformers,
as distinguished from those who merely desire to
make political capital, the desirableness of a con-
certed plan to carry one or two reforms, to which
they shall agree to give their strength. Those who
would from natural inclination support the mea-
sures just mentioned, might assemble and discuss
their relative importance, the relative probability
of their being carried, and the course which they
ought to adopt to carry the measures agreed on
through the House of Commons. If all can be
successfully pressed, we can- have no possible
objection, to all of them we should give
our hearty support, and nothing would please us
better than to see all of them become the law of
the land this session. But we rather surmise that
at a conference it might be found that practically
more could be effected by a more limited effort.
Our readers well know our opinion on the
claim of the Ballot as a part of Parliamentary
Reform. To us it appears, alone, to be worth
all the Whig and Tory Reforms of the Reform
Bill which have been proposed since 1832, It
It would really enfranchise more than will be
gained by any proposed extension of the franchise,
and it will practically consign to the waste basket
all the Bills and Acts relating to electoral bribery
and corruption. On social, moral, and, we might
almost say, religious as well as political grounds, we
should give the first-place to the Ballot. It is an essen-
tial to the good working, indeed, of the other re-
forms—Mr. LOCKE KING'S and Mr. D. SEYMOURS.
New voters would be but so many additions to the
Free but dependent electors, unless they exercised
their new privilege under the shield of secrecy.
They would consist, in towns, chiefly of the work-
men who dare not contravene the political orders
of their employers ; and, in counties, of those who
would be dependent on the landlord and the clergy-
man.

" Mechanics, tradesmen, farmers, and so forth,

Are copy paper,"
on which their superiors may scribble their names
and claim them as their political own. On this
ground we should strongly urge on the better part
of the Liberal party to make the Ballot their
object, and to avow Weir intention of refusing, on
questions at all of a party character, their support
to the Government if it did not support them in
giving independence to the electors.
'We know the difficulty of this course—that we
could not refuse to support Government in all its
good practical measures, and that it would there-
fore bring forward only those which, on their merits,
deserved support ; but it will be a singular session
if the ingenuity of Mr. DISRAELI does not devise
some motion which shall be a party resolution, and
on which, if the honest Liberals only quit the
House, they will not leave the Whigs in
the lurch. A few such defeats will teach
them their real position. They will show
the professedly Liberal party that that party
cannot be expected to hold together if one-
third of it will not concede to two-thirds in pro-
moting an advanced Liberal policy. The annual
BERKELEY motion, introduced by pleasant jokes
and amusing humour, has become an annual farce ;
we cannot doubt that the Ballot Society feels it, in
its present form, to be rather an incubus than a
help. No one in the House, or out of it, thinks of it
as intended to lead to action. It never even provokes
debates, and is hardly treated by the house as seri-
ous business. There is no question probaby on which
the evidence both from home and abroad is so com-
plete—it is ripe for settlement. It is the one mea-
sure which would be the political fortune of any
Government which really wished to confer the
power of " doing each his own voting" on the pre-
sent electors, and we must think that Lord J•HN
has, by retiring with his sham Reform Bill
from the field, left the course clear for
the friends of the Ballot, with Etheir real
Reform Bill, to tell the Government--now, give
us your support, or on the next party motion we
shall fail you to a man. It is time that the policy
of the Whigs, beating the Liberals by Tory help
on this and other Liberal questions, were put an
end to• Let Lord PALMERSTON and Lord JOHN
RUSSELL see that we will he made tools of no

•
longer.
Should, however the other measures be brought
forward, they• have, of course, much to be said in
their favour. The Houses of Commons, and the Lords
too, would much prefer them. They would prefer
them as extensions of the area of political serfdom.
They do not, indeed, wish just that, but they would
infinitely prefer it to liberating.-their present serfs,
and making provision that none who might acquire
the franchise in future should ever become serfs.
Let our Liberal members, however, meet, and
with them some leading Reformers out of doors,
and let them fairly consider the whole question.
This seems to us to be the first step.

However it may perchance be modified this
evening, Lord PALMERSTON'S Select Committee
upon Public Business appears to have been chosen
in every respect most judiciously. As might have
been anticipated, the full compliment shows, as
nearly as possible, the two sides equipoised. At
any rate, " parties " are balanced as impartially as
such a balance could well be managed in a groupe
altogether yielding those " odd numbers" in which,
according to RORY O'MORE, " there's luck."
Twenty-one members—that is the first intimation
(in this particular) upon the papers of the House
of Commons for to-night—twenty-one members to
constitute the Premier's proposed Select Commit-
tee upon Public Business, Five to be the quorum—.
is there also, in the committee's regard the concluding
scrap of information. Inetrmediately between those
two announcements the names of the chosen one and
twenty are enumerated. They are as follows, via.
" Viscount Palmerston, Mr. Disraeli, Sir J. Graham,
Lord Stanley, Sir F. Baring, Sir J. Pakington, Sir
G. Grey, Mr. Walpole, Mr. Bright, Mr. S. Est.
court, Sir G. Lewis, Mr. Hardy, Mr. Bouverie,
Colonel W. Patten, Mr. Gregory, Mr. Maguire,
Mr. Dunlop, Mr. K. Seymei, Mr. Massey, Mr.
Deedes, and Mr. W. E wart." So that the com-
mittee, besides including, as a matter of course,
the Leader of the House and of the Government,
and the Leader of the Opposition, will include also
almost the two foremost men among the Independ-
ents—namely, a great ex-Minister like Sir JAMES
GRAHAM, and the most eminent among the popular
Tribunes, the member for Birmingham. Besides,
these there are two other Cabinet Ministers to share
the responsibility responsibility with the veteran First
of the Treasury : there is Sir GEORGE
LEWIS, the Home Secretary, and there is Sir
GEORGE GREY, the Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster. Counterbalancing these, there are no
less than four of Mr. DtsuAELl's colleagues in the
last Administration, whose names are recorded
above among the twenty-one select committee-men
—to -wit. Lord DERBY'S two ex-Home Secretaries,
51,"•-•*"..-•••• 170."-

I COURT, together with Lord DERBY'S own son,
successively the noble Earl's colleague in the late
Cabinet as Colonial Secretary and as Indian
Secretary, and with these Lord DERBY'S inde-
fatigable and laborious First Lord of the
Admiralty, Sir JOHN PASINGTON, one who has
of late years made good for himself a foremost
place among the ablest of our administrators. Ten
out of the twenty-one members of the Committee
have thus been here, one by one, particularised. The
remaining eleven, leading off with Sir FRANCIS
BARIN G, are, for the most part, thoroughly business
men who will, if accepted by the House, thoroughly
well acquit themselves of the responsibility de-
volved upon them by their selection. Of this,
judging from their character as members of the
Legislature, we may rest asured. No matter how
little sanguine we may be as to the result of the
labours of the Select Committee when all has been
said done—at any rate we may rest confident of
that, that the members of it will devote them-
selves seriously to the consideration of
the momentous problem as to whether the Business
of the Session may or may not in any way be ap-
preciably facilitated.

As to the actual state of things in regard to the
progress of the Business of the Session in the
House of Commons, the Committee may judge how
far a change has become desirable from their own
very recent recollections. Not, of course, that any
light can be thrown upon the question by their
immediate experience. We are only now to be
sure in the second week of the Session of 1861—
and last week, the initial week of the Session, was
minus one sitting—beginning the parliamentary
labours as it did only on Tuesday evening. Out of the
whole four days of that first week, that week of
mere ceremonials, preliminaries, and preparations,
out of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday
(Saturday being, for the chief part at least of each
session, a dies nom no less than the sacred day-of-
rest itself, the Sunday—and Wednesday, again,
being, according to custom, the weekly half-holi-
day of both Lords and Commons)—out of the first
.four days' sittings of the session, or rather the first
three nights' and one day's sittings, there are
twenty hours of actual work already set down " to
the good" in the new year's annals of the popular
branch of our Parliament. Examining the way in
which this score of hours came to be consamed in
the House of Commons, we find that on Tuesday,
from four p.m. to very nearly two o'clock, they were
debating the Address in answer to the Speech from
the Throne. On Wednesday, from about noon till past
three, they were discussing Foreign policy ques-
tions for the most part. On Thursday evening,
from five. o'clock until nine, they were debating
this very subject of the Committee proposed by
Lord PALMERSTON, with a view to the facilitation
of the business of the session, and the saving of that
" time" which is more than its proverbial equiva:
lent of money to the nation at large, when squan-
dered. On Friday evening, to complete the
analysis of the business of the House of Com-
mons during its first week in '6l, the occu-
pation of the members was a little more diver-
sified in its character—relating in succession to
a variety of miscellaneous topics " ventilated"
in the first instance in the form of questions
addressed to Ministers, and secondly, in that of
running comments &propos to the formal hebdomidal
motion for the adjournment of the House until
Monday; and after this, to three subjects of
curiously contrasting interest and importance, i.e.,
Mr. VILLIERS' motion for a committee on the
Poor Laws—Mr. GLADSTONE'S motion for the
amendment Bill respecting the guarantee for the
Red Sea Telegraph, and that other proposition,
the proposition relating to the establishment of
Post-office Savings Banks submitted to the House
at the close of its last sittings by the
right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It
can hardly be said, therefore, that much time has
been wasted •in the first week of the New Session, in
which first week it was idle to expect that anything
practical could very well be accomplished. It will
be necessary for the committee to look further back
for " cases in point"—but not in any way further
back thadi last session, that long wasted session of
1860 in which the Lords and Commons, but in which
the Commons especially,made good the etymological
accuracy of their title as a House of Parliament.
That one session alone of 1860 is a complete justi-
fication of the appointment of this Committee upon
Public Business—and we yet hope that the depres-
sing remembrance of its " much cry," in the way
of debate, and its " little wool" in the shape of
actual legislation, will act as a wholesome incentive
to the labours of the one-and-twenty committee-
men.

It will be seen that judgment is again adjourned
in that lamentable PATERSON-BONAPARTE case
which is just now so much of a scandal in the
two hemispheres. It was adjourned thus for
another week (we may at length presume of course
positively for the last time) at the conclusion of the
proceedings at Friday's sitting in the First Cham-
ber of the Civil Tribunal of the Seine. Upon that
occasion, at that last sitting, the conclusions were
brought for ward by the Imperial Public Prosecutor,
M. MERVEILLEUX-DUTIGNAUX. And certainly they
are "conclusions"in their way sufficiently significant,
conclusions not very likely now to be foregone,
for the simple reason that they are already fore-
gone conclusions.

It is noticeable in the first place that the Public
Prosecutor avowed quite plainly that he deemed
it necessary "to set aside from consideration the
decrees issued by the Emperor Napoleon 1., which
had been mentioned in the pleadings, and which
had for object to annul the marriage of his
brother JEROME, those decrees not having any legal
authority !" M. DITVIGNAUX'S expression of his
opinion immediately afterwards that the marriage
contracted at Baltimore, in 1803, between PRINCE
JEROME and ELIZABETH PATERSON, " must be
looked on as clandestine, in consequence of not
having been acccosnplished with all the conditions
of -publicity:required by the French legislation,
and must, consequently, be declared null, the object
of such proceedings being to evade the law"—
that surely is rendered, as an opinion, " utterly
valueless by the remembrance of the simple fact
that one whole year had elapsed before Madame
Lifers, the mother of the bridegroom, entered
her protest against the marriage ! A lapse of time
altogether invalidating that protest, and rendering
legitimate (even ii' had not been so originally) the
public ceremonial of the marriage at Baltimore by
the Catholic Bishop of Baltimore. Insisting, how-
ever, that (in the recollection of the facts of all that
publicity !) the marriage there was nothing less
than clandestine—the Imperial Public Prosecutor
admits on Friday, " nevertheless, as Miss PATER-
SON acted with good faith in espousing Prince
JEROME, the marriage ought in that respect to pro-
duce its civil effects as regards her." Allowing this
much, however, only to add immediately thereupon,
"but on looking at the decision come to by the
imperial family council, the whole affair was
already decided. That council, in fact, had not
confined itself to judging the question of name, but
had added, in express terms, the nullity of the mar-
riage, and refused to it even the civil effects which