The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-14 00:00:00

Acting Manager—Mr. Wm. Smith.

CANTERBURY-HALL CONCERTS!!!
Westminster-road.
Proprietor ..
A Grand Selection from Verdi's new Opera,
IL CORSARO,

(This opera has never been produced in this or any other
country, except at these Concerts), having met with that de-
cided success which charactise 4 the most popular works of
this great Master, will be performed EVERY EVENING ;
together with a Selection from LA FIGLIA DEL REGGI-
MENTO, by Donizetti,
Principal Artistes—Miss Russell, Madame Maria, Miss
Tyrrell, Mr. H. Herbert, Signor Tivoli, H. Drummond, and
C, W. Bernard. Director, Mr. F. Jonghmans.
The Comic Department comprises Messrs. E. Marshall, A.
B. Hollingsworth, J. Blanchard, F. Bell, W. H. Welland, and
the Brothers Conrad.
John Martin's Three celebrated Pictures will remain on
view a short time longer In the Fine Arts Gallery of the
Establishment.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THU DA.Y.—Morning, 3h. 40m.—Afternoon, 3h. 54m.
To-MOUROW.-Morning, 4h. 10m.—Afternoon, 4h. 24m.

TM& WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, MARCH 14, 1661.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
49—highest since noon yesterday.
30—lowest this morning and during the night.
47—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-30.29.
WIND—Westerly—light ; with fine weather. It was
two points below freezing during the night.

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THE SUN.

LONDON, THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1861

Once more the present House of Commons has
shown its hostility to Reform of the Representa-
tion, let it come in what shape it may. Whether
presented by Whigs or by Tories—whether in a
comprehensive measure, or in a partial one—
whether to extend the suffrage, or to give freedom
to the voting, so that it be but a measure tending
towards a more accurate representation of the
people at large, it must be refused a hearing, or
kicked out on a second reading, or " the previous
question" must be carried. We all remember a
political personage, before whom a great reformer
pleaded for " Righteousness, Temperance, and
Judgment to come," and who, finding Reform, of
the kind pressed upon him, an awkward thing to
argue against, moved the "previous question "
"Go thy way this time, when I have a conve-
nient season I will send for thee." It
was impossible not to recall his celebrated
answer, when the House resolved by a
majority of 28, not fewer than 468 members being
present, that " this question should NOT be NOW
put." Of the " righteousness and temperance" of
what was proposed to it, there could be no doubt ;
of the "judgment to c'me" there might be some
difference of opinion ; but, as it seems, the Anti-
Reformers in both Houses think it time enough to
give in when the judgment has come. Let it but
come, in the form of an ungovernable Ireland, or a
Birmingham bull-ring, or a famine, and then, away
go Catholic disabilities, or rotten boroughs, or
Corn-laws. Nothing too corrupt or sacred not to
be thrown away before a judgment come. We
have no doubt that Bishops themselves would be
pitched out of the House, as so many JONAHS, if
the sea of popular indignation did but run high
enough.

For ourselves, as our readers are aware, we have
had no great hope of advantage to the cause of real
representation from the £lO franchise in counties.
Mr. DISRAELI asks,—is it not a notorious fact
that the constituency represented by 150 county
members in this House is infinitely more numerous
than the constituency represented by more than
300 boroughs ? We answer, yes—and no. Yes,
if you refer to the registered electors ; no, if you
refer to the real electors. Deduct the agricultural
boroughs, which in reality send county members,
and the number of members returned by counties
and by real boroughs would be perhaps about
equal, Bat turn to the county constituencies,
and we may confidently ask Mr. DISRAELI
whether another thing is not "notorious"
—whether it is not notorious that some
thirty or forty thousand great landlords elect
the members for the counties ? Why, only so
recently as the election for South Wilts, the liberal
candidate who withdrew never dreamed of talking
about the poor unlucky e:ectors; he urged the state
of feeling amongst the " large landholders," as the
instifying reason for his withdrawal.
It is the absolute dependence of the counties on

the landlords which makes us practically indiffe-
gfent to the £lO vote in counties. We think it fair
and right that the householder paying that rent in
counties should have a vote ; we are certain that
the class in counties must be superior in social
position to the same class in towns, but we cannot
refuse to see that Mr. LOCICE KING'S measure would
not give them a vote ; it would merely entrust them
with one for the landlord's use. There might be
in many cases a considerable number of independent
persons enfranchised by the bill, but, take the
country through, we have not the shadow of a
doubt that the dependent voters created by it would
be
five to one compared with those who were inde-
pendent. Our position, therefore, is that we should
have voted for the bill, as being a measure formally
right, though practically useless. We should vote
for any extension of the suffrage which could be
offered to the present house ; but we should at the
same time protest against its standing in the place

of the essential reform of enfranchising the vote at
the polling-booth. That is the key of Representative I
Reform; and Mr. LOCKE KING and Mr. BAINES
will gain little for the people by their bills, both of
them good in themselves, unless they protect the
voters:whom they propose to create, together with
all those who now vote at the dictation of their
superiors or their purchasers.
_ _

We are sorry to say that we cannot regard the
vote of last night as a Government defeat; not-
withstanding the speeches of two leaders in the
Government, and the general vote of the Govern-
ment on the right side, it would be foolish to affect
a belief that the Government wished the Bill to be
read a second time. No one doubts that they are
heartily glad to get rid of it for the session, though
Mr. KING is quite at liberty to propose, on the
first day he can get, that " the bill be now read a
second time." LordPALKERsTox is very much obliged
to the Tories for mustering in strength enough to
do the work he dared not do, but which, as the
speech of Sir G. C. LEWIS especially showed, he
really wished done. Lord JOHN had more dispo-
sition to acaept some reduction of the county fran-
chise, but even he made no effort to enforce it;
and the Church Rate division, in which the Go-
vernment made but very moderate exertions,
showed that if Government had been at all in
earnest, it could easily have commanded a sufficient
majority to read the Bill a second time, and to
send it into committee. The Tory " whip " was
vigorous and successful ; the absent Liberals gave
them their majority.
It was a curious little episse of the debate, that
Lord JOHN RUSSELL went out of his way to attack
an irrelevant part of Mr. DISRAELI'S Reform Bill
—for which Mr. DISRAELI did not fail to repay
him amply. Lord JOHN said, in the close of his
speech, that there was one sufficient reason
for rejecting hi 3 opponent's Bill—that it would en-
able a landlord in Northumberland to create " faggot
votes" in numbers in a small borough in Cornwall
so as to swamp the real constituency there. And this
was unquestionably true, although all who, like
overselves, were desirous that the Bill should go
into committee never dreamed of allowing the
clauses relating to that subject to remain as they
were. It may even be doubted whether Mr.
DISRAELI himself was fully aware of the frauds
which might be practised under them. Mr.
DISRAELI'S Roland for the Oliver was uncommonly
good :

" The noble lord has to-night, in a spirit of curious reve-
lation, explained to us the cause of that conduot which a
couple of years ago astonished, and I think in some de-
gree annoyed the country. We now know the reason why
the noble lord then thought it his duty to oppose the mea-
sure of the late Government. Taking out of a measure
which included several hundred details one connected with
the borough franchise, the noble lord held it up to public
odium and said, " Because faggot votes could by this machi-
ne'', have been created in a borough on the estate of a
nobleman in a distant county, this is the reason why I
thought it my duty to oppose the measure brought forward
by the late Government." Well, but if that were the chief
reason, why did you not mention it in the resolutions which
you then asked the house to approve ? Extraordinary re-
serve I extreme delicacy of reticence, that, in the possession
of this secret, feeling himself justified in taking the course
which certainly astonished Parliament at the time, the
noble lord did not feel himself justified in communicating
to the house the sufficient reason for his conduct ! Why,
sir, it is too late in the day to invent these shadows to per-
plex public opinion."

Fairly, too, did the hon. member conclude with the
remark that, though not successful with his own
measure, " he was at least as proud of having been
the organ of bringing it before Parliament, as the
noble lord can be of having obtained office under
the conditions he did ; and of the political and con-
stitutional franchises which in consequence he has
been enabled to bestow on his countrymen.

Sir MORTON PETO appears to concur with Mr.
Punch in the matter of our Navy Estimates. The
old, typical, salt-water JACK, who, in the current
week's cartoon, is addressing the whole British
nation as symbolised in the form of that world•
famous Stout Gentleman in the topboots JACK,
who is there addressing JOHN so very respectfully,
cap in hand, with a scrape of his foot, and a pull
at his forelock, reminds the Stout Gentleman,
most impressively, that it ain't the fighting chaps,
but the thinking chap, along of whom we have ever-
lastingly to haul. so much shot out of the locker
Sir MORTON PETO thinks pretty much the same if
we may judge from that notice of motion he has
down on the papers of the House this evening under
the head " Admiralty :" it is the twelfth on the list
and runs in the words following—" That before
proposing No. 3 vote of the Navy Estimates, the
Secretary to the Admiralty make the following
return for the guidance of the committee : the num-
ber of departments in the Admiralty at Somerset
House and Whitehall ; the number of persons em-
ployed in each department, and their designations ;
the number of rooms occupied by each department ;
the number of rooms occupied for records; the
number of rooms occupied by messengers ; the num-
ber of messengers employed; and the amount of
the yearly disbursement for messengers." Having
examined which extremely suggestive notification,
the reader may be asked not inappropriately if
he recalls to mind that wonderful puzzle of a
sum familiar to the majority of schoolboys—that
amazing little calculation about the nails in a horse-
shoe, and the solitary farthing upon the first of
those nails doubled and quadrupled in rapid multipli-
cation ? That little enigmatic nut to crack, with all
the gloss of ripeness upon it, may be found origi-
nally in Mr. DAY'S delightful boy's book of " Sand-
ford and Merton." And the story when looked
back to will be found really and truly as applicable as
any apologue can well be, to the astounding redup-
lication of clerks and messengers, and all that abun-
dant small fry of subs and supernumeraries—helping
directly to double and quadruple the most ridiculous
little items imaginable up to that stupendous
total required now annually for the expenses of
our maritime department, an aggregate making,
a 3 we all know, an amount over £12,000,000
Happily the returns moved for by Sir MORTON
PETO will come in aid, to however slight a degree,
of the comprehensive investigation about to be com-
menced by Admiral DUNCOMBE'S Select Committee.
We may eventually be enabled thereby to understand
more clearly how applicable to some of the outer as
well as to some of the inner offices of the great
omnipresent department of Circumlocution is
that charming laughter-moving tag to one
of the minor scenes in GOLDSMITH'S hilarious
comedy of " She Stoops to Conquer :" "DIGGORY
(to Servant)—What be you going to do ?—Servant
—Nothing. DICGORY—Then I'll come and help
you." Only—when the committee, in the course
of their inquiry, and the House afterwards through
the medium of their report (aided as that report
may be by such opportune returns as those Sir
MORTON PETO is about to move for this evening),,
shall have come thoroughly to appreciate the
ludicrous and wasteful superabundance of all
these superfluous subordinates and supernu-
meraries, we do hope and trust that, how-
ever ruthlessly, there will be a clean sweep
made through the slumbrous and Gvercrowded
chambers of the Admiralty. The time is fast
arriving when we must have cleared away at last
the chief Part of those immemorial incrustations