The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-16 00:00:00

The retirement of Sir William Beathcote has caused no
little excitement in Oxford. The Conservatives are
by no means in good humour. They have really no
one of any weight whom they can put forward.
Mr. Mowbray is a respectable gentleman, but his claim to
represent the university would not be listened to for a
moment if he were a Liberal. His university career was,
indeed, equal to Mr. Hardy's. Both took a second-class
in classics ; but, then Mr. Mowbray has not had such a
parliamentary career as Mr. Hardy's. Sir Roundell
Palmer is, indeed, a formidable antagonist the most
formidable that could be brought forward. For two
months past the Conservative journals have been eulo-
gising him, at the expense of his friend Mr. Gladstone,
for his course on the Irish Church. Now they suddenly
find themselves called upon to depreciate the man whom
they had been eulogising, and when they write against
him are confronted by their own words. The High Church
party are almost certain to support Sir Roundell Palmer.
Dr. Pusey and Mr. Liddon were on Mr. Gladstone's com-
mittee in 1865, although perhaps they felt that to be rather
I a strain upon their churchmanship. Sir Roundell Palmer
1 will cause no such strain, and they will support
him with their whole hearts ; all except, perhaps, the
ultra-ritualists, who will remember that he was one of the
counsel who gave an opinion adverse to them. The con-
test will be severe. Were it not that the country clergy
will under the new Act vote in large numbers, there is no
doubt that the Liberal candidate would beat his opponent
1 as completely as Mr. Gladstone beat Mr. Round, Dr.
Marsham, Mr. Ward, and the present Colonial Secretary,
the Duke of Buckingham. But under existing arrange-
ments it would be foolish to offer a prediction.
Mr. W. H. Smith, the champion of the Conservative
working men of Westminster, and the opponent of Mr.
Mill, very imperfectly understands the true requirements
of working men. He has hired a number of public-houses
as committee-rooms, and has thus entered into an alliance
with the greatest enemy of the working man—the publican.
Mr. Forster and Mr. Miall, the Liberal candidates for
Bradford, have committed the same blunder—rather call it
a sin. Another Liberal candidate, who comes forward as
the champion of the working classes at Halifax, and who
is dividing the Liberal interest there, is the subject of a
very disagreeable pamphlet which has been issued this
week. The writer of it was formerly the clerk of this
candidate—Mr. Greening—and accuses him of having
falsified his accounts, in order that he might obtain a
larger sum from the Cobden Co-operative Mills than he
I was entitled to receive. The pamplilet is either a libel, in
which case the subject of it ought to prosecute the
author, or Mr. Greening ought not to be a candidate
for Halifax or any other place. The brochure is written
with singular moderation and freedom from invective.
The author publishes a copy of the cash-book with which
Mr. Greening is said to have tampered. This quarrel
partly explains, I suppose, the reason why the shares of
the company have lately been so depressed, and also why
an additional call has lately been--made upon the share-
holders. It would be well if Mr. Hughes and Mr. Morrison,
who are directors of the concern, would look well
into it. The mills are not an ordinary joint-stock
company. They are an attempt to apply to production
the principle of co-operation which has until lately been
applied only to distribution, and it would be a matter of
much regret if this interesting experiment—which, if
successful, would be a solution of a most difficult social
problem—should fail by reason of any mismanagement or
misconduct on the part of those engaged in it.
The Bishop of Exeter, whose gradual decay and approach-
ing death are announced, is, though the oldest bishop on
the bench, not the oldest member of the Episcopate. He
is 91 years of age, and has been Bishop of Exeter thirty-
seven years. But the Bishop of Winchester, who is
thirteen years younger, has been bishop five years longer.
He was consecrated to the see of Llandaff in 1826, and
translated to Winchester in 1827, so that he has
presided over that diocese for more than forty
years. I believe the oldest of our Church digni-
taries is Dr. Gamier, Dean of Winchester, who
is considerably over 90 years of age. On the sup-
position that the Bishop of Exeter will not survive
for many weeks, it will fall to a Conservative Government
to appoint, and I trust that the so-often-proved necessity
of a division of the diocese, and the creation of a bishopric
in Cornwall, will be fairly considered. With reference to
the bishopric of New Zealand, I may mention that the
Record confirms the announcement which was first made
in this correspondence some weeks ago, that Mr. Randall,
of Newbury, will be the new bishop.
The Times is just now doing its best to write up the
claims of the " Abyssinian captives" to some compensa-
tion at the hands of the nation. Ido not find that
the efforts of the leading journal are approved of
by those who are well acquainted with the events in
Abyssinia. The estimate formed of Mr. Rassam,
at all events, is by no means of the very highest
kind. It is alleged that he deceived Theodore with regard
to Sir Robert Napier's demands. The Emperor supposed
that the terms which he had offered had been accepted,
and was terribly surprised when he found that Magdala
was bombarded. Mr. Rassam does not, I am informed,
deny that the Emperor was mistaken, but justifies
his own conduct in not undeceiving him by the
fear that if he told Theodore what the English general's
demands were all the prisoners would have been put to
death. The more this Abyssinian affair is inquired into
the less satisfactory it becomes. There are now rumours
that the bill will be a good deal heavierthan was expected.
But that is a small matter compared with the alleged
breach of faith.
My budget of literary news is not so large as usual.
First I have to announce a decease—the Evening Mercury,
a halfpenny, evening paper, which lived just about a fort-
night, and died of want of circulation. When will men
who enter upon journalism understand the uselessness of
attempting to start a London daily newspaper with less
than £lO,OOO, and without the determination to endure a
loss for two years at least? The Glowworm, whose
feeble light had almost disappeared, is sending forth
some faint glimmer again, having come under the
management of Mr. S. 0. Beeton, the pub-
lisher of cheap books. Some of the best articles in
the Pall Mall Gazette, especially those on Church affairs,
the woman's question, and international law, are written
about 5 a.m. by a barrister in large practice. That very
poorly-furnished magazine, The London, which has, I sup-
pose, never been seen out of London, and scarcely in it, is
announced to appear with a new series. The Broadway
has secured some well-known writers. Among them are
Mr. Henry Kingsley, who is to write a new tale called
" Stretton ;" Mr. Newman Hall, who is to give a series of
papers on his American tour ; and (literature, like poverty,
gives us strange companions) Mrs. Pender Cudlip (" Annie
Thomas"), who will turn out another of hertales, in which,
I presume, all the women will be engaged in intrigues and
liaisons.—The papers are advertising a " new tale "by
Miss Braddon, " Run to Earth ;" but it is a very old one,
and was published many years ago in a by no means
high-class journal.—Messrs. Allen (the Lord Mayor
that is) are about to publish a Chinese novel, by Sir John
Bowling. —Mr. Malcolm Maccoll, the " Scrutator" of the
Guardian, has just written a work in support of Mr. Glad-
stone's Irish policy, entitled " Is there not a Cause ? '
Per contra, Sir Arthur Elton, a well-known High Church
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that Miss Bateman reappears in " Leah" at the Hay-
market on Saturday ; and that the opera season opens
on the 24th with "Lucrezia Borgia," in which Santley,
Mongini, Titiens, and Trebelli-Bettini will appear.
The new theatre in the Strand is being pushed on
with speed, but is still a long way from com-
pletion. When it is finished there will be six
theatres within ten minutes' walk of each other.
The rebuilding of Her Majesty's Opera is going
on very fast. To-day the great iron girders, massive
as those of a railway bridge, are in their place, and will
soon receive the new roof.—At the Agricultural Hall the
" Fall of Magdala " alternates with the " Messiah" and
" Elijah."—The pavement of London streets is now
covered with advertisements of the rival theatres. You
cannot stir a step without treading upon "The King o'
Scots " or " The Lancashire Lass."