The Sun.
London, England, 1859-04-06 00:00:00

point, that a majority against the Government
could possibly have been obtained.
We are now, however, to consider what the several
constituencies will determine in reference to this all-
important subject. They generally take a more
enlarged view of public affairs than their represen-
tatives. The Parliamentary medium too frequently
disturbs the vision of the latter, and they think
more of the vague whisperings of .the Tapers and
Tadpoles of their respective clubs than of the
honest, manly, and straightforward opinions of
their independent supporters. Two years since
they found to their cost how grievously they
had erred in their calculations. They had
omitted the most essential element. They had
ignored public opinion, and many who were con-
signed to private life for the remainder of their
days mourned in (political) sackcloth and ashes
the error into which they been betrayed.
We believe that there will be a still larger infu-
sion of new blood into the new House of Com-
mons even than in 1857. But for the " Palmer-
stonian dodge," which bamboozled many of our
modern Solons, they would have hesitated before
voting for the resolution which placed their
seats in jeopardy, and rendered it a forlorn
hope for a considerable number of the
outsiders. They, however, suffered themselves to
be deceived, and must submit with the best grace
practicable to the consequences, however disagree-
able.

The electors in every rural and municipal district
will now have to solve the great problem. They
are to decide between the sterling metal and its
Brummagem imitation, to say whether they truly
wish for reform, or to have it talked about
in as " prave 'ords," as ancient PISTOL uttered
at "the Pridge." If they want reform, they
will give Lord DERBY a fair working
majority. If they desire to have it spoken
of but nothing done, they will support the dis-
ciples of one or the other of the rival lords. There
is one point however on which every true re-
former should be decided. He should refuse his
vote to any man who would not support the ballot
in all its integrity ! The battle of the ballot is
now to be fought, and whoever votes for one of its
opponents, or one who has not made up his mind
is guilty of treason to the grand principle. No
similar opportunity can occur for a con-
siderable period, and if the electors of
the City of London, of Carlisle, Taunton,
and Tiverton, would act in accordance
with:their convictions, and discard Lords J. RUSSELL
and PAL3IERSTON, Sir JAMES GRAHAM, and Mr.
LABOUCHERE, together with a few score of their
followers, full and complete protection would be
afforded to every voter in exercising his suffrage,
without which protection the extension of the
franchise would be a curse rather than a blessing.
All that is required is " a long pull, a strong pull,
and a pull altogether," and before the closing of
the session of 1860 the Ballot will be part and
parcel of the statute law of the land.

" Where's RUSSELL p—dished," as Lord BYRON
would say—sent to his constituents as a private
man, not as a Prime Minister ; and with nothing
in his hands but his empty, heedless resolution.
Perhaps, however, we may add his £6 borough
franchise, and his thirty changes of seats instead
of Mr. DISRAELI'S fifteen, and then we have the
entire political capital which the Whig Lord pro-
fesses to have more than these whom he desires to

supersede! What a programme to go with to the
country ! He cannot claim preserving the borough
forty-shilling freeholders, since half the county
members at least were favourable to that, and Mr.
DISRAELI would certainly have conceded it. He
cannot claim the £lO county franchise ; Mr.
DISRAELI had not only offered it, but argued most
unanswerably for it. We much question whether
Lord JOHN can claim even his £6 borough fran-
chise, since the opinion is pretty general that had a
large number of his own supporters joined the
Liberals on that point, Mr. DISRAELI would have
cheerfully conceded it. It would have been one
thing to have eaten dirt at the bidding of Lord
PAL3IERSTON, and quite another to yield to a majo-
rity of the party which he leads.
But can we say that Lord JOHN'S £6 bid, as the
hammer was falling, is worth the country's accept-
ance ? We decidedly answer—No. We, as our ,

readers know, desire a large enfranchisement of the

working classes, but it is their enfranchisement,
not the mere conferring a vote on them, which we
ask. We believe the working men to be worthy,
by hundreds, of the privilege of a vote, but we ask
the vote for them, not for their employers,
nor for those who would seduce the worst
amongst them through the agency of the
gin shop, nor even for Trades' Unions, who
could frequently exercise a despotic authority over
their own class. Without protection for the £6
voters we would rather leave them as they are.
The franchise would be to them a trap and a snare ;
nay, frequently an instrument of torture. We do
not believe the non-electors will be deluded
by the anti-Ballot Whig Lord for a moment.
They well know that they are equal in intelligence
and independent thought to thousands of the pre-
sent electors ; but they want to be independent in
action as well as in thought. We do not know
whether our readers noticed the factious form in
which Lord JOHN, on Monday night, repudiated
the Ballot. He would vote against it "if the present
Ministry should introduce any Reform Bill contain-
ing clauses introducing the Ballot." Bad, in his
view, is the Ballot, but worse, far worso, the
"present Ministry !" We beg to tell his lordship

that, if the "present Ministry" had but the wis-
dom to introduce such clauses, he might vote as he
pleased, the house would carry them, and his lord-
ship might bid a long, long adieu to the hope of
office.

We are pleased to learn that his lordship will be
met in the City by a vigorous opposition. The
numerous friends of the Ballot are already on the
alert, and are seeking a trustworthy candidate. If
Lord STANLEY comes forward, well known as his
views are on this subject, we hope he will not hesi-
tate to avow them, and to promise his sup-
port in a Cabinet to be open on this topic,
and in the House of Commons. Cne thing
we can say advisedly—we would infinitely rather
have, substantially, the bill for which Lord
STANLEY certainly said the best, with protection
for the voter, than Lord JOHN'S of Monday night
without it. We are confident it would give us
more independent constituencies, more peaceful
elections, and members more ready to hearken to

their supporters.
We wish Lord PAL MERSTON also joy of his situa-

tion. What horrified him most of all, about ten
days ago, was the idea of having "the British Con-
stitution scrambled for on the hustings ;" hence his
threats of penal continuance in office, of refusing
to vote the routine bills necessary to a dissolution,
and so forth ; alas, but a few days glide by, and
the Dictator of 1.857, is obliged by the terrors of
Parliamentary desertion, to promise good behaviour
—" that he would not oppose any obstacle whatever
to carrying out the advice to dissolve !" He would
not oppose—with very good reason assuredly—he
would hardly have found a seconder. But for their
years, what a truly amusing spectacle would the

two Whig Lords present ? Quarrelling, like two
schoolboys, of late, whether in or out of office—
and now, just when all looked as if they had shaken
hands, it turns out that it was, after all, but a
friendship on the part of both to queer the Tories,
and on the part of one of them, at least, to make a
laughing-stock of the other.
It may be hoped the country will now do its
own work. It is appealed to to say what sort of
a bill it will have. It is asked to elect a Par-
liament for a special object; a Parliament which
is to fulfil its mission and immediately surrender
its trust to those who chose it. Petty, local views
ought now to be laid aside. The future Parlia-
ments of this country are to be moulded for years
to come by this particular election ; it is pre-
eminently a time when measures, not men, should
be the cry. Neither DERBY nor PALMERSTON, but
Reform, is the cry of this-election ; and it behoves
the constituencies to send back representatives
with definite instructions. Whatever Ministry be
in power, it will be justified in giving effect to the
solemn verdict of the nation. It has asked the
country's advice, not the advice of a committee of
Commons chosen to the cry of PALMERSTON and—
no one knows what. Under these circumstances,
the free constituencies will lose an opportunity
which will never be surpassed, if they do not de-
mand, with a unanimity to which all statesmen
must bow, that VOTING BE FREE.

It is an old saying, and a very sad one, that one
half of the world knows not what the other half is
doing. A melancholy illustration of this has cer-
tainly just been issued in the form of a small par-
liamentary paper full of the most deplorable reve-
lations. We allude to the brief but fearfully im-
pressive report in regard to the Common Lodging-
houses of the metropolis, moved for by the Earl of
SHAFTESBURY. The report was ordered to be
printed on the 15th of March, 1859. It is that
furnished by the Assistant-Commissioner of the
Police of the Metropolis, specially charged with
the control of Common Lodging-houses and the
condition of single rooms occupied by families
in the metropolis. It is addressed to the Right
Hon. THOMAS SOTHERON ESTCOURT, Her MAJEs-
TY's Secretary of State for the Home Department.
Although the story here told anew in very simple
words is one with which, for years and years back,
we have been fearfully familiarised, it reads ever
to us with the horror of a perfectly new revelation.
We shuddered as we ran our eye down the details.

" Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer cloud,
Without our special wonder ?"
And all these miseries, all this hideous squalor, all
this unutterable wretchedness-Lfestering not only
here and there, but all over. his the richest city upon
the globe ! Cheek by jowl with all the luxuries
and refinements of the wealthier classes ! Close
under the shadow of the gold cross shining among
the clouds upon the summit of St. Paul's Cathe-
dral—and stretching far and widelin all directions
within a radius of many miles! Abominations
breeding, and spreading, and intensifying in all
the byeways, and alleys, and courts, and slums,
and rookeries of a capital covering an area of no
less than fourteen square miles with its houses,
and having a population of as many as 2,500,000
in all !

Turning over the pitiful records crowded
into this truly lamentable Report, what are
the details reiterated again aid again with
frightful monotony ? It is the same loathsome
story everywhere repeated—in Limehouse and in
Whitechapel—in the parishes of St. Andrew's and St.
Sepulchre's—at Bethnal-green and at St. George's-
in•the-East—at Holborn and at Greenwich.
Everywhere the same—in Bluegate-Fields and
Gregory's Rents, in Sheen's-court and Pratt's-
alley, in Field-lane and Harding's-buildings.
Everywhere we come upon the same horrid picture
of closely-packed filth and wretchedness. Tene-
ments that ought to hold (according to the provi-
sions of the Act of Parliament), let us say, but
nine, crammed with twenty—and. these twenty
huddled together with no sense of the commonest
decencies of life, old and young, and of both sexes,
being crowded together indiscriminately. Walls and
ceilings blackened with smoke and dirt, for years
together, receiving not the faintest sprinkle of
whitewash. Floors filthy beyond description—
windows broken and patched. Bedding (supposing
there is any) swarming with vermin. No dust-bin
for the sweeping away of the rubbish. Closets '
without a vestige of any screen to those using
them—a single closet being common to a whole
row of these densely-populated dwellings—foul to
the utmost degree of foulness. Sometimes no
water supply at all—sometimes a supply at once
insufficient and intermittent—here one pipe for a
whole court without cistern or tub of any kind
whatever—here a water-butt without lid or cover,
and much too small to contain a supply sufficient even
for a single tenement. Such are the details repeated
in this miserable Report, literally usque ad nauseam.
The Assistant Commissioner takes us with him,
among other places, into one familiar to all the
readers of Little Dorrit. He takes us into a room
in No. 2, Bleeding Heart-yard, St. Andrew's, Hol-
born—where, in a space hardly fit for six people, we
find a man and his wife, two boys and two girls
above the age of fourteen, and two children—" The
water supply is by pump, in common with the other
houses ; the closet is trapped, but generally dirty ;
there is no dust bin, and the whole house is in a
most dilapidated and filthy condition." Remem-
bering all this misery, and squalor, and degrada-
tion, and remembering that it is perpetually mul-
tiplying with the growth of the population—it is
surely no wonder that in France, for instance,
there have been risings before now of these lowest
ranks of the people—" in the grandeur of despair !"
Summoned from their haunts by the cry of the
Jacobin—

.‘ Ho, St. Antoine ! Ho, St. Antoine,—thou quarter of the

poor,
Arise from all thy households and pour them from thy
door;
Rouse thy attics and thy garrets—rouse cellar, cell, and

cave—
Rouse over-worked and over-taxed,—the starving and the

slave."
If the legislators of this land of ours would but
bear this hidden anguish of the humbler classes
above all things in their remembrance !—if they
would but conscientiously direct their energies to
the holy labour of its diminution, we should have
much more practical good then as the result of all
their annual hubbub yonder down at Westminster.
We should hear less then, at last, thank GOD, of
those narrow manoeuvres of faction and machina-
tions of party warfare, so eloquently reprobated on
Friday morning by her MAJESTY'S Chancellor of
the Exchequer.

POST-OFFICE PECULATION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Srn,—l should not have deemed it necessary to address
you,. had not I seen in your impression of last evening a
notice headed "£2O Reward."

I am one of the subscribers so frequently robbed of their
newspapers in transit through the Post-office. Yesterday
I eagerly looked out for The Sun, but no Sun came ; and
this is frequently the case. ,
I am willing to add my testimony to the careful and
punctual delivery of letters by the Post-office, and their
careful administration of the law which makes it so heinous
an offence in the eyes of the law to break the seal of a letter ;
but they do not exercise a proper supervision in the case of
newspapers. Certainly, it is high time an alteration in this
state of things took place. Perhaps this, if inserted in your
valuable journal, may catch the .eye of some Post-office
official, who may take a step in the right direction towards
correcting this abominable am, &c.

A SUBSCRIBER.