The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-24 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 1857.

The People of Paris have emphatically pr.: -
tested against the thraldom in which they aro held,
and put forward an unequivocal demand for a full
and fair representation. Notwithstanding the
convulsive efforts that have been made to obtain
the votes of the electors for the Government can-

didates, and to induce every person to e: cercise
the franchise in some way or other—oho' wining
from voting being regarded as a more serious
manifestation of hostility than support ing the
wrong side—less than ore-third of the ri )gistered
electors have bestowed their most sweet 'voices on
the proteges of the Ministers.
Out of 350,000 registered elec'coYs only
110,525 appear to have voted in accordance with
the Imperial requisition, while 96,199 have gone
directly the other way. But no less than
143,276, or about three-sevenths of the whole
number, have stood aloof from the entire pro-
ceeding, determined that their names should not
be identified with the political farce. This was,
indeed, a serious demonstration—one more pow-
erful, and far more significant, than open resist-
ance to the Imperial ukases. Intimidation and
cajolery were alike ineffectual. More than
140,000 adult males, inhabitants of the French
metropolis, practised the policy of abstention with
complete success ; proving, beyond the possibility
of doubt, that they had no confidence in anything
that could be effected by the Chamber of Depu-
ties,
under the existing circumstances of the
country.

Will the EMPEROR be warned, while there is
yet time Will he attend to this handwriting on
the wall, as distinct as that which warned BEL-
SHAZZAR of his impending doom ? It ought to
teach him that a mere colourable representation
will not suffice ; that the people require, not
merely the shadow, but some of the substantial
elements of freedom. Sullen discontent, ,as
evinced by those who refrained from exercising
the franchise, cannot be trifled with. A safety-
valve is required to permit the escape of elements
dangerous to the national safety—and doubly so
to the permanency of his dynasty. Many
may acquiesce for peace sake, and the preservation
of order, but there are too many still " nursing
their wrath, to keep it warm," whose complaints,
if not loud, are deep. Timely concessions may
avert the peril. But no time should be lost. Any
moment may produce an explosion. Tile action
of a constitutional opposition would go far to pro-
vide the remedy, but the measures adopted
with a reckless disregard to public opinion
having prevented such an opposition from
springing into existence, other means may be re-
sorted to, which may prove even less to the taste
of the Government, and where the stake will be
of far greater magnitude than that affected by
divisions in the Chamber. It may not be merely
the existence of a Ministry, but the fate of a
dynasty, that may be jeopardised.

The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Bill has
passed safely through the shoals and quicksands
by which it was obstructed. No thanks, how-
ever, are due to its opponents ! They resorted to
every means by which the measure could be neu-
tralised or defeated. They were, however, for-
tunately unsuccessful, and thereis every reason to
anticipate that the bill will pass into a law during
the present session. It certainly, does not go so
far as we should desire. It is branded with gross
and palpable injustice to the fair sex. But still
it is a step in the right direction, and we have no
doubt that it will eventually lead to the introduc-
tion of more equitable and impartial enactments.
It is a perfect farce to speak of the indissolu-
bility of the nuptial contract. The argument is a
century and a half too late. For that period the
Legislature has been in the habit of passing bills
fur that purpose, which, when the preliminary
conditions have been complied with, have be-
come as much a matter of course, as the verdict
of a jury, or the decision of a Court of Equity,
when the proper evidence has been supplied. The
only point at issue is, whether relief may not be
administered as wisely and cautiously by eminent
judges, as by the Legislature itself. The expenses
will not be quite so enormous, and, therefore, the
area of relief will be extended, but we do not in
the slightest fear that a divorce " a vinculo ma-
. trimoniti" will, in any case, be granted by the New
Court, which would not also be sa notioned by Par-
liament, if the claimant could afford to defray the
heavy expenses incidental to the application.

Great reliance is necessarily placed on judicial
discretion. For the same offence a criminal may
be subjected to the highest secondary punishment
known to the law, or may escape with the infliction
of a nominal penalty. He may be reduced to a con-
dition far worse than that of a slave—banished for
ever from his native land, or kept for a protracted
term in penal servitude, or dismissed on paymeat of
a nominal fine, or a period ofimprisonment that has
actually expired at the time of the sentence being
pronounced. And yet this wide discretion is
seldom, if ever, abused. Why, then, might not

the dissolution of marriages be entrusted to a
similar discretion ? and, above and beyond all,
why should females be debarred of the possibility
of obtaining relief, however gross the ill-usage to
which they have been subjected, and palpable the
impossibility of their ever again living in amity
with their oppressor ?

The principle adopted is that an injured woman
may be coerced into a condonation—that she must
either make up Ler mind to lead a life of cheer-
less solitude, or pardon the offender, who, oblivious
of his solemn vows at the altar, and of every
marital duty, has outraged the purest feelings of
her heart. We are satisfied that the power might
safely be conferred, and that where there was a
possibility of forgiveness the prayer of a repentant
husband would rarely be disregarded ! But, why
should not the new tribunal be enabled to say,
just as well as the Legislature, whether the cir-
cumstances were such as " to render future coha-
bitation impossible ?" That was the test adopted
by Lord CAMPBELL, and there can be no adequate
reason why it should not be enforced by the
judges. More stringent proofs might be re-
quired where the claimant was an injured wife,
but when these proofs were forthcoming and
an overwhelming case established, why
should the female be debarred from the remedy
to which she is justly and equitably entitled ?

• One amendment was carried at the suggestion
of Lord CRANWORTII. The power of unlimited
fine and imprisonment against both parties was
taken away, and a power of fining the male of-
fender only retained. This is a decided improve-
ment, for the power of incarcerating parties with-
out the intervention of a jury should be charily
conceded, and thero were satisfactory reasons to
show that the probable imprisonment of the fc-
male might, in many instances, defeat the objects
of the bill.

It is for the women of England to obtain the
rights to which they are so justly entitled, but
which have hitherto been so contumeliously de-
nied. The present, although a decided improve-
ment on the existing law, is a partial and one-
sided measure. It may, however, be amended.
"The sharp end of the wedge" has been intro-
duced, and if the gentle sex are only true to
themselves and to their suffering sisters, if they
only set their own shoulders to the wheel, they
, may be assured of the eventual triumph of the
good cause.

PATTERSON'S glorious day-dream of a sea-water
ship-canal at length in a fair way
of being re -
lined. But not at first where it wasintended to bb

realised by the Founder of the Bank of England.
Not at Darien or Panama; but at Suez and Pelusium.
The former, grander, inter-oceanic enterprise may
follow afterwards in due course—will, must, inevi•
tably follow afterwards sooner or later. But, pre-
viously there appears to be at length every rea-
sonable prospect of a similar design being carried
out Eastwards instead of Westwards--in the heart
of the Old instead of in the centre of the New
Hemisphere. Opinions have long been divided
as to which of these two kindred projects might
be regarded as the more feasible—whether it
would be advisable to adventure first upon cutting
through the Isthmus of Suez, or through the
Isthmus of Panama. It was a tempting alterna-
tive. A ship canal between the Atlantic
and the Pacific, or a ship canal be-
tween the Red Sea and the Mediterranean
Expeditions of research have been sent out to re-
connoitre in each direction. But a miserable
fatality appears (if one may venture to say so) to
have hitherto, for the time being, barred the ad-
vance of our hopes across the narrow strip of land
connecting the two great American Continents.
Heretofore it has been but a name of ill-omen—
The Darien Expedition Poor WILLIAM PAT-
TERSON and his Puritan compatriots were starved
to despair and all but exterminated. Poor ELLTOT
WARBURTON immediately after detailing the
tragio incidents of that disastrous adventure
in a historical romance of thrilling in-
terest—himself bound upon a kindred enterprise—
was burnt to deatli upon the high seas, when the
steamship Amazon was destroyed upon the Atlan-
tic by a conflagration. Every one remembers
the unfortunate close of the engineering investi-
gation entered upon in that same direction, soon
after the premature and dreadful demise of Mr.
WARBURION.

It has been otherwise with the scientific re-
searches instituted with reference to the Isthmus
of Suez, with a view to the ultimate construction
of a ship canal between the Red Sea and the
Mediterranean. There the one golden and desir-
able project has been kept in view no less
assiduously, but under circumstances infi-
nitely more propitious. It captivated the ima-
gination of the last of the World's Great
Conquerors. And NAPOLEON loved to linger over
the design of opening a broad sea-water channel
between Suez and Pelusium—just as he afterwards
bung over the plan, and ultimately realised the
project, of building a Colossal Granite Highway
across the Alps, permanently connecting France
and Italy by means of the magnificent Passage of
the Simplon. Altogether surpassing in the lat-
ter instance the mere temporary device of Haim-
' saL, and in the former instance entirely eclipsing
the vain-glorious phantasy of an elder ago, the
one which designed to carve Mount Athos into a
Giant Statue of ALEXANDER A statue holding a
City in the palm of one hand, and pouring a River
from the mouth of an tfrn upon which the other
was to rest reposingly ! The Passage of the
Simplon was realised, as we all know, and still
exists among the noblest of the many Imperial
creations of NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. But his
intention of constructing a ship-canal between
Suez and Pelusium was—as we all know equally
well—wholly frustrated. His occupation of Egypt
and Syria in 1798-1799 closed very soon after
its commencement. The opportunity never re-
curred—for NAPOLEON. It presented itself later
on to MAHOMET ALl—but MAIfOMET ALI died in
extreme old age long afterwards, still retaining the
sceptre of Egypt firmly in his grasp, and at his
death the project of a Suez ship-canal still re-
mained provokingly unrealised ! It is so still.
But the conviction has at length spread far and
wide that it is really and truly, after all,
realisable ! And so the Design is actually,
upon this very. day, June 24, 1857, formally
submitted to the consideration of the sound com-
mon sense, the judgment, and experience of the
mercantile men of the city of London. The
particular plan to be investigated is that
of FERDINAND DE LESSEPS. The distance
to be traversed by means of the proposed
sea water channel is within 100 miles—ninety-
t ago miles, or thereabouts, from Suez to Pelusium.
Midway between those two seaports lying Lake
Timsah I The whole undertaking involving an
expenditure (according to the calculations of M.
DE LESSEPS) of B,ooo,oool.—and,a further annual
expenditure, to "keep up" the Canal and the
Ports, of 70,0001. additional. The resources of
revenue suggested by the new projector of the
old enterprise being traceable chiefly to a
system of tolls—the average charge being that of
ten francs per ton : which upon the supposition
(not an unreasonable supposition) of a yearly
transit of 3,000,000 tons, would result in a re-
venue of 1,200,0001. upon an outlay of 8,000,0001,
Such is the project submitted this day to the
scrutiny of the sagacious merchant princes of our
metropolis. We have very little doubt that even
supposing it net to be at once regarded by them
most favourably—it will ultimately, sooner or
later, be recognised by them and others as a good
and secure investment.

Lord PA.LMERSTON read the gentlemen of Con
vocation a quiet lecture on Saturday. He spoke
to them by expressive silence. If they but learn
from him to debate less and to preach more and
better, his instruction will not have been lost.
The Archbishop; though wanting in firmness to'
carry out his view; showed at first his disinclina-
tion to anything beyond a formal meeting, as at York,
of the antiquated appendage to the real Parliament.
By degrees, the busybodies of Convocation obtained
so far the upper hand as almost to compel his
Grace to prolong their sittings, and this year
they concocted for him an address to the Throne
in which they very broadly hint—indeed more
than hint—that they should like her MAJESTY to
give them something to do.
After expressing becoming sympathy with the
QUEEN under her recent bereavement, congratulat-
ing her on the bishoprics which without State aid,
have under her reign been created in every quarter of

the globe, "from Africa to New Zealand, from Vic-
toria to Rupert's Land," " Saes which gem the
earth," as he of Oxford saith ; after deploring the
difficulties in the way of keeping children of the
labouring classes longer to the School and the
Catechism ; after this affectionate and benevolent
episcopal exordium, they inform her MAJESTY,
that if she will " oonarnit to their special
deliberation" any difficult or urgent
business affecting the interest of Religion
or the usefulness of rile Church, they, to be brief,
will do the business convocational justice ; but
they remind her t'at "hitherto the shortness of
time given to our consultations has in a great
measure frustrated the advantages which we
humbly trust would result if fuller opportunity
were afforded for ascertaining the opinions of the
clergy by discussion in convocation." Like the
Manchester ma .aufacturers, their power of pro-
duction has bet 3n limited by their being put on
short time. Theyonly crave, therefore, like the men
of cotton, a more ample supply of the raw ma-
terial, and to talk for "full time." This request
seems very fair since, as they remind her MA-
JESTY, she, ii her writ of summons, assembles the
reverend and right reverend gentlemen " to treat
of certain difficult and urgent affairs concerning