The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIO JOURNALS.

The Times has some remarks on " Women's Rights,"
and deals with the arguments of Professor Fawcett on the
question. According to Professor Fawcett and his friends,
women are so put upon by the laws and customs of this,
and, indeed, of all countries, that they have not a fair
chance of shewing what they are really worth and what
they can do. Taking a base advantage of some slight
inferiority in physical strength, the stronger sex— for
stronger, we presume, it is admitted to be—industriously
robs women, degrades them, incapacitates them, oppresses
and persecutes them, just as conquering races do the less
fortunate, whites the negroes, Saxons the Celts, rich men
the poor, orthodox Christians heretics and schismatic;
and so forth. Married women, they observe, have no
personal property that a brute of a husband cannot lay
his hands upon or place at the disposal of his own credi
tors. Women cannot sit in either House of Parlia-
ment, or hold public offices in Church or in State ;
they have no votes for anything or anybody, except
in a charitable institution or a joint-stock company.
Everything is done to nullify and stultify them. They
pay rates, and just now, as the professor observes, a good
many poor women are paying rates in order that their
male neighbours may be able to vote ; they may be over-
seers of the poor and waywardens, because these offices
bring work and trouble but no pay. They cannot go to
our public schools and universities. There are no col-
leges, fellowships, prizes, and degrees for women. They
are debarred from the ennobling and invigorating prin-
ciple of association. Meu divide them and govern them ;
isolate and crush them ; shut them up and reduce them
to bondage. If the professor be right in Ins assump-
tion that the social and political status of women
represents nothing but oppression of the weak by the
s`rong, having the sanction of laws made by the latter,
then he may reasonably ask for the emancipation of
the weaker sister, and with some hope of success.
This assumption, however, which is the basis of his
whole argument, includes only a very small part of the
facts of the case. Men have their sphere, and women have
their sphere, though no doubt it would save philosophers a
great deal of trouble if they could be treated alike, set to
the same work, charged with the same duties, and ad-
dressed with the same arguments. Men and women

differ much more in their natural instincts, their prevailing

tastes, their objects of ambition, their fancies, imagina-
tions, hopes and fears, loves and hates, than they do in
industrial or athletic force and skill. Women are at home
in private life ; abroad in public life. Their intense feel-
ings, their concentrated attention, their very strong sym-
pathies and antipathies, the tenacity with which they
cling to particular objects of interest or affection, their
overweening prejudices, and the oneness to which every-
thing converges around them, give them an acknow-
ledged supremacy in their own private circle. This is
their nature—that is, highest nature—and the:r
happiest condition. Unfortunately, all women are not so
favoured or so constituted. There are exceptional circum-
stances and exceptional characters. For example, "the
strong-minded woman," whom Mr. Fawcett wishes to
regard as a superior specimen of the sex, is an exceptional
personage. with certain elements of character in excess of
the usual proportion. Mr. Fawcett thinks it hard that
men who cultivate and admire strength of mind them-
selves, should not like it equally in women. But it is
not the same strength of mind in both cases ; at least,
not generally ; and when a woman is so strong-minded
as to suggest a resemblance to the stronger sex, men
feel they could not love her, and accordingly do not like
her. Men certainly engross many occupations for
which women would be very competent. If, for example,
Mr. Fawcett and Mr. T. Hughes would persuade the
fashionable world to frequent only those shops for the sale
of articles of female attire where none but shopwomen are
employed, that would give a suitable occupation to many
thousand women of whom some are possibly making shirts
at a pittance which hardly keeps body and soul together.
No doubt, concludes the leading journal, our laws are man
made laws, as they are also laws evidently made by rid.
men, or men with property to defend. But so it has
always been everywhere, and always will be. There is nt
help for it, and the only help for the classes ill-used—
that is, the children, women, poor, and simple—is tha
they should acquire the special craft, the special arts,
graces, gifts, or what not, most befitting their hunali.e ant
dependent condition, and most calculated to make the best
of ;t, under circumstances always more or less unfavourable
to very great results.

The Post asks which it shall be, peace or war in Europe.

The fallacy which underlies any argument for peace
founded on the pacific professions of Governments is
patent. Nothing can be more plausible, and nothing can
be more uncertain. Put them together, make the most of
them, take them to be truthful and sincere, and, after all,
it will have to be owned that they are but a broken reed
to lean upon. So, too, with respect to financial embar-
rassments, it is not that States standing on the brink of
bankruptcy may be impelled to desperate action, but that
they may sink their liberty of action in alliance. Also

while it is obvious enough that words of peace are nen
tralised by measures of a warlike nature, and that in the
confusion of ideas " trifles light as air" assume portenton
proportions, it would be absurd to endeavour to solve the
question "La Paix or la Guerre ? " on such contradic
tions. That question—it is just as well to say it at one.
and plainly—we it ust be content to let alone, and if the sus
pense is hard to bear, the burden, heavy and comprehensive
as it may he, will not have been borne in vain if it call
forth, instructs, and exercises the judgment on which
Public opinion can be expressed with force and effect. It
is folly to recur to what is 'done and done with for any,
other purpose. The time that is given to political trans.
formations should be improved by the development of tilt
understanding through which they may be established
permanently, and so as to constitute a peaceful guarantee.
For the rest, two years ago it was made matter of com-
plaint and reproach against France that she had failed to
keep the peace of Europe. We thought then, as we think
now, that France is not particularly bound to fulfil a
common public obligation ; but be that as it may,
having taken up the position assigned to her, she may
reply to this question of peace or war by pointing to at
alternative represented by her augmented army, ant
defined by the mission imposed upon her ; and if not hci
proper role, it may, and we trust will, be played so a.J
to maintain the honour of the empire and the tranquillit'
of Europe.

The prospects of the Second Empire have, says the Daily
News, decidedly not brightened of late. Ugly symptoms
of gathering trouble announce a period of coroplexei
counsels, and a halting policy at home and abroad. A
sense of instability and insecurity weighs upon the public
mind. In all the great centres of the national life, in the
commercial and manufacturing cities, the discontent and
disaffection are almost universal; Even in the rural dis-
tricts the new conscription for the Mobile National Guard
is bitterly resented in thousands of poor cottages. One good
effect of this Army Reorganisation Bill is the horror of
professional soldiering it has created. Another good
-effect of it has been to bring home to the population in the
provinces the disadvantages of a personal Government.
In the towns it has served to rally all sections of the
Liberal parties under one common badge of resistance to
military rule. Throughout the country disaffection, dis-
trust, contemptuous indifference, restless apprehension,
.prevail and increase. The Second Empire has killed the
legend of the First : for that great benefit at least may
Liberal France b. 3 thankful. As public spirit revives, it
becomes more and more clear that the Second Empire
must change its skin and become a Liberal and parlia•
mentary Government, or make an end of discussion alto-
gether, and go back to the first principles of its origin and
creation—as a Government of absolute silence, secrecy,
and repression.

The Standard regrets that there is no certainty that
the merits of the case affecting President Johnson will
affect its result. The Senate of the United States, which
has to try the issues raised, has committel itself to the
constitutionality of the; Tenure of Office Act. The Chief
Justice is a strong Repubhcan. It is true that both
have shewn more dignity of manner and judicial decorum
than was expected ; but the Senate has decided every inci-
ckntal question yet raised adversely to the President.
And not only so, but the idea that it might dare to be
impartial has been received with a howl of indignation by
the Radical press, and political ruin has been threatened
to every Republican Senator who'shall dare to vote an ac-
quittal. The House of lt epresentative:3—one party t 3. t'. suit
_daily attends en masse in the Senate Chamber, as if to
overawe the court. If the verdict is to be given by a party
vote, the condemnation of the President is as certain as
would be his acquittal by any b ply of men acting honestly
in a judicial spirit and on judicial principles. But a
party vote on a political trial, however it may be greeted
at the moment by party cheers, will be remembered, when
passions of the hour 4m
have cooled, as an act of nationa7
shame, which will brand with indelible infamy every mar
who toolc part in it, and which the Senate itself as an
assembly will never recover.

While the Tee!,Taph regrets that there should have been
proceedings fur the review
any hitch in the preliminary'
at Portsmouth, it fin,!s c:;n3olation winli it regards the
facts from another poin:, of view. The War 011 ice and
the public must alike aem that our present arrangements
are indefensible, and will not work ; and that at early
day they mu.At be overhauled, thoroughly rev is;2d, and dis-
phicA, for some system which will satisfy- the nation that
it (I,,ei not pay money in vain. A place for our volunteers
nutit be found in the general military systEm of the coun-
try, and the Punual ass,-mblies of vast bodies must be
unt...:l:ited to the control of an authority capable of

olyplying their energits t,) a useful pnrpose. arhamcnt
Lai a great deal of 111,1-k on hand but we humbly
tilinit that, considering the aspect of the times, our mili-
tary system stands in the van of those questions which
Dress for a solution. An Inspector-General of Reserve
furcos worth his salt, ought to be capable of suggesting a
general plan, so far as his department is concerned ; and
we should have some guarantee that the follies of 1868 will
not be repeated in 1869. Lord Ranelagh's scheme of orga-
nisation, whatever it is, may be totally beside the mark,
and wholly unacceptable ; but he has the merit of having
persistently signalised a glaring defect, and he is certainly
entitled to boast that the Portsmouth transaction amply
warrants the application of the word "sham " to the
Volunteer army, coriAdel'ed in its relation to actual serf
vice. May the warning suffice