The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-30 00:00:00

`~~

vacant by the disfranchisement of Sudbury and of
St. Albans is now proposed to be distributed ac-
cording to the wishes of the Conservative Opposi-
tion, and not according to the wishes of the Liberal
Government ! Substitute the sub-division of York-
shire (in the manner proposed) for the creation of a
sort of Siamese borough of Chelsea and Kensington,
retaining at the same time the suggestion of a
new member for Birkenhead, and a new member,
a kind of unicorn member for South Lancashire, and
—no wonder the Tories evidence a willingness to
look upon the Ministerial scheme, when thus modi-
fied with a certain degree of complacency ! What
says Lord DERBY upon the subject ? Why, the
noble earl speaks as plainly as words could possibly
put it. He says, in a strain of quiet irony, quite
amusing in its way, "I suppose I may assume that
it is not the intention of her Majesty's Government
to accede to the suggestion of the noble baron (Lord
STRATHEDEN to wit, as will be seen presently) of
referring this bill to a select committee, which
cannot possibly sit before the month of August.
And for my own part I never recollect a bill for
which there appeared less reason to `.refer it to the
consideration of a select committee. The facts
are plain and not disputed. There are no very
complicated details of arrangement, which can
be more conveniently settled in a select
committee. It is a bill of a very plain
and straightforward character, which can be
perfectly well discussed in your lordships' house.
For my own part I have no fault to find with it.
I think it has been greatly improved by the mani-
pulation which it has undergone in its progress
through the House of Commons, and which I give
the Government credit for having sanctioned with
the most exemplary resignation." All this being said
recollect ! as a mere matter of course by the noble
earl, the head of her MAJESTY'S Opposition ! Lord
DERBY sees quite clearly before him the fair pros-
pect presented to his -party by this measure for
furthering the interests of Conservatism. And,
therefore—reasonably enough on his part—he de-
precates very earnestly the notion of referring the
bill in this new form to a select committee
as proposed last evening—we cannot but think
most wisely proposed—by Lord STRATHEDEN. It
should be remembered especially that in offering
this suggestion Lord STRATHEDEN did so as a
zealous Reformer, as a supporter of the Liberal
Government. And that Lord DERBY rejected the
proposition on the contrary as a Tory Statesman
as the Leader of the Conservative Opposition.
Lord STRATHEDEN said truly last evening, towards
the close of his argumentative speech, explanatory of
his reasons for proposing the reference to the Bill to
a Select Committee, that the only consolation to be
offered to baulked constituencies like those of Chel-
sea and Kensington is literally (as ho proposes) to
keep the vacancies suspended. And haste in this
matteris surely in no way to be regarded as impera-
tively requisite. The Government of the Empire
can very well be carried on without at once comple-
ting that mysterious total 658, set down, for some
occult reason yet to be explained, as the all-essential
aggregate of the House of Commons. Precluded,
though Lord STRATHEDEN was by circumstances
from carrying his amendment, constrained though
he was to withdraw it towards the close of yester-
day's discussion, we cannot at any rate regret for
one instant that the proposition was submitted to
the House of Lords : rejoiced as we are that it
afforded one at least of our patrician reformers the
opportunity of raising his voice, earnestly though
vainly, against the precipitate carrying through
Parliament of a so-called Liberal Bill for the appro-
priation of four seats—three out of the four of
which will, in all human probability, run a very
imminent risk of being appropriated by the Con-
servatives !

General CIALDINI and Baron .....14icAsoLi do not
mean to trifle with their work. The Baron, with
good reason, pointed all Europe to the .-f.:20,000,000
unanimously voted by the Chambers to the capital
account of Italian liberty and unity. Money is the
test in this mercenary world of ours. When the
League had fairly started their £lOO,OOO subscrip-
tion, Sir ROBERT PEEL and Lord JOHN RUSSELL
thought it time to haul down their colours. The
£100,000,000 voted by the North in America will
probably do more than even the vote of men to
dishearten the straitened Southerns ; and Austria,
haughty as she is just now towards Hungary, may
ask herself whether she could get a loan of twenty
millions unanimously voted by deputies from every
part of her dominions, and taken up with confidence.
The loan is unmistakeable evidence that all Italy
is hearty in standing by the Union, and that she
gives her confidence to the Sovereign she has chosen,
and to the servant he has chosen as the representa-
tive of a bold policy. Tne interpretation of the
lora is the speech of RICASOLI; it proclaims that
Italy means to have Rome for its capital, and will
find a way to Venice.
But, in his department, General CIALDINI is
emulating the boldness of the Baron. He has
pledged himself to the suppression of the brigands,
and ho goes the right way to work with the evil.
The fables of his cruelties have soon come to an
end. He deals summarily only with those who
I carry the verdict of guilty on their persons. No
one will deny that when bands of armed men are
patrolling a country, and killing and plundering
everywhere, the obvious duty of a Government is
to shoot every armed man who has not the KING'S
commission. This is the head and front of his
offending; and, were we peaceful residents in the
district, we may be sure we should be the first
to applaud his order. But he has now shown
that he has as much moral as military courage.
The Cardinal Archbishop of Naples has been allowed
to remain
tion be true, h h
on his good behaviour ; but, if the accusa-
e
with wasabused the forbearance of the
King to become
others a member of a great
Bourbon conspiracy,
evidence of his guilt, bOutr course we must await the
at least a prima facie case, and
This is the right and manly course.
CIALDINI believes he has
has arrested him.
It is notorious
that the brigands have been made use of by the
Papal Government to harass the King, that Roman
territory, and money too, if report is to be believed,
have been at their service. It has been subject of
formal complaint at Turin, and practically confessed
by the French General in command at Rome. We
must regard it therefore as a manly and politic
course to lay hold on the grand agents iv. promoting
civil disturbance, and not merely to punish the
illiterate and desperate men whom they employ.
The Papal Government and FRANCIS 11. have at
least done Austria some service, if they have I
achieved nothing for themselves. The tone of the
EMPEROR towards his Hungarian Diet has been,
in great part, due to the disturbances created by
the disbanded soldiers in the South by their in-
stigation and help. Had CIALDINI been free to
face old BENEDEK on the Po with the entire
Italian army, although there might have been no
fighting this year, FRANCIS JOSEPH, and his Ger-
mans, would have shown a little more caution. They
must not, however, calculate on too long immu-
nity. ' CIALDINI does not mean the Southern
troubles to be long ones ; he will mobilize the
National Guard before long to the extent needed ;
and, meantime, his men are acquiring a training
which parade drill tan never give. After some _

months work in the South they will be fit for
anything that can be required of them. The
regular training and discipline they have. And
the self, reliance and fertility of resource acquired
by a sort of Guerilla war will give CIALDINI
some regiments fit for GARIBALDI'S work of
" hunting the Austrians like rabbits." It will
not be all evil that will come of these trouble-
some brigands. It will give an opportunity to
clear the country, and the men who do it will
have been in a useful school.

The Sultan, we are told, is setting right the
finances of his empire, all at least that can be done
in the way of reduction he is ruthlessly effecting,
bat he meets, of course, with some obstructions,
and even the French ambassador is said to back the
old corrupt Vizier, and to have got him a hand-
some pension in lieu of a merciless examination of
his accounts. In another department, how-
ever, the Sultan intends to reign supreme.
He is the head of Islam, and he has undertaken the
rectification of the dress of the Turkish ladies, and
of their demeanour too. They are not to enjoy
henceforth so much liberty as they have done, and
they are to wear thicker veils—for it seems they
have lately indulged the unladylike wish to be seen
as well as to see, The latter they could do pretty
well over the edge of the thickest veil, but the former
is a privilege not allowed in the East to ladies, and
the SULTAN is determined they shall conceal their
faces as good Oriental ladies ought to do.

While we read this somewhat amusing infor-
mation we had at the same time before us the sad
story told at the inquest of Mrs. BRODHURST, and
we could not help wishing the head of our Church,
too, had the power, and was disposed to use it, of
regulating the dimensions of female dress.
The number of deaths due to the present absurd
dimensions to which it has swelled is really appal-
ling. We used to read, too frequently, before the
modern fashion set in, of children's clothing
taking fire, and life being lost because a child
did know what to do, and was not discovered in
time; but the death of adults, from such a cause,
was comparatively rare. But poor Mrs. BROD-
HURST is only the last of numerous cases in
which hoops and crinoline have been the sole
cause of the accident being fatal, and in which
the sufferer has been an educated lady, aware
that suffocating the fire by means of rugs, cur-
tains, or anything at hand, was the best
way to extinguish it, and in which, too, she has
been aided by intelligent domestics—in this last
case by a husband also.
It is frightful to think that, with a highly com-
bustible dress thus expanded, it seems impossible
to extinguish the flame with sufficient rapidity to
prevent fatal consequences. It is most probable
that the death of Mrs. LONGFELLOW, wife of the
poet, mentioned in the American papers, was due
to this cause ; it is certain that that of Mrs.
BRODHURST, like those of so many predecessors
in England, was so. All was the work of moments.
Her husband had 14 ascended a flight of stairs after
he left her, and was called back by the cry of
"fire." When he got back, he and three domestics
could not extinguish it by enveloping the burning
dress in the hearthrug and all the loose things in
the room, aided by the intelligent co-operation of
the lady, who had not lost her presence of mind, in
adapting her position to the demands of the case.
A verdict of " Death from injuries received
by accidental burning," was recorded. We think
the jury would have done wisely to have been
more specific. The evidence was much more pre-
cise as to the cause of the death. Dr. BRODHURST
stated that his wife, unfortunately, had on one
of those crinolines made of steel hoops. " Every
means was used to extinguish the fire about and
under the hoops" with everything at hand, but to
no purpose. The Doctor " knelt on and tried
to compress and break them, but all with-
out avail ;" they had to be cut off before
the fire could be extinguished." We should
certainly think the verdict ought to have specified
that the hoops were the most guilty cause of
this lamentable loss of life.

We observe that an attempt is made to throw
the blame on the dress not having been made in-
combustible by having been soaked in sulphate of
ammonia, or tungstate of soda, and dried again.
The laundress ought, we are told, to be held re-
sponsible for doing this. We should say the mad-
ness and tyranny of fashion is alone responsible.
Of fashion, emphatically, not of taste. We
never heard the present unnatural style of
female dress defended on the score of ele-
gance. Every statuary and painter would at once
protest against draping his figures in such mon-
strous departures from the only test of elegance—
nature. Drapery naturally flows and falls,
and the sights we behold every day betray some
unnatural interference with what might be a
graceful self-adjustment of the material so artifi-
cially distended. It is really too bad that a mode of
dress should be persisted in which at the best makes
U 3 smile, which is inconvenient in every public place
and conveyance, which is a violation of all taste in
regard to the female figure, and which, to crown
all, has been the cause of as many deaths in a year,
probably, as all the railway accidents in the king-
dom. From motives of humanity, at least, it is
time for the rulers of fashion to bethink themselves
of a revolution.

DEATH OF THE DUKE OF BUCKING-

HAIL

We regret to learn that the Duke of Buckingham
and Chandos died last night, after a short illness.

THE GOODWOOD VASE, 1861.

DESIGNED AND MODELLED BY N. R. ROSKELL.

The more observant visitors to the new Sculpture
Room in the Academy Exhibition for the present
season will probably bear in recollection an
animated group in miniature, representing " Lycaon
imploring Achilles to spare his life." It was num-
bered 1,088 in the Academy Catalogue, and was
there accompanied by these two dimly-echoed lines
from the " Illiad :"

" Thy well-known captive, great Achilles see ;
Once more Lycaon trembles at thy knee."
The same young artist who there pourtrayed with
such evidence of his anatomical knowledge and of
his appreciation of the beautiful, the prostration of
Lycaon at the feet of Achilles, has but just now
taken
Goodwoodp V
te
designing
f
another advance step in his profession
y h
noinr 1861gandmf
oordme modelling
g moulding of
the,
the ornamentation of this*
The
Vase—which, by the way,
is entirely in silver—areoxydizea
.t in the purest style
rei
of Greek art : the two beingTillustrative of
,6 The Self Sacrifice of Curtius."
s „
taken from the sixth chapter of the seeventthhemße isk
of Livy ; and the manner in which the artist's hand
has realised the description of the historian cannot be
better indicated than through the little descriptive
epitome given upon the card of invitation issued by
the Messrs. Hunt and noskell (late Storr and Mor-
timer) the firm by whom this beautiful work of art
has been manuLelured
The first medallion depicts the vast gulf in the Forum,
which the Augurs had declared would remain unclosed
until the most precious things in Roma were thrown into
it. Marcus Curtius, a noble youth, is seen leaping into the
chasm, and thus solving the problem by sacrificing youth,
valour, and patriotism. The second medallion shows a
Roman Augur at an altar, praying to the appeesed deities,
in the Forum. A Roman eagle crowns the summit of the
cup ; the handles are formed of figures of military virtue
and fame, and on the base are seen the twin founders of
Rome, Romulus and Remus, guarded by the wolf.