The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-01 00:00:00

LOIVDON, 7 UESDAY, SEPT. 1, 1868.

Mr. BRIGHT has issued his address to the electors
of Birmingham, and declares his belief that they
desire him to become a candidate at the ensuing
election for the honour of their representative.
After ten yet.rs spent in their service, and twenty-
five in public life, he does not enter into an elabo-
rate statement of his views on political topics. The
cause of Parliamentary Reform has made great
progress, Mr. BRIGHT admits, since the last elec-
tion, but a good deal remains to be done, he empha-
tically adds. The small boroughs must be got rid
of, and the large populations " still demand their
fair share of political power." This is Mr.
BRIGHT'S everlasting theme. If he had his
way he would concentrate all, or very nearly
all, of power and influence in the large towns
and cities, and leave the smaller ones alone
altogether, or at best show them very little
favour in any shape. The doctrine of large towns
ruling the country with no check put upon them is
not a very safe one, however, and does not admit of
the realisation of broad principles of political eco-
nomy. Mr. BRIGHT is a consistent advocate of the
ballot, and declares his conviction that the " true
interests of the public and of freedom will be served
by the adoption of the system of secret and free
voting." In almost every other country that has
representative institutions it is in practice, and he
thinks it is absolutely necessary for the real repre-
sentation of the United Kingdom. On the whole,
the comments made in this address on the Reform
question are more moderate than might have been
expected, but doubtless the hon. member reserves
himself for the time when he treats the subject in
.0
his election speeches. The only part of his criti-
cism which is at all strong is that which refers to
the minority vote, that he considers a " most out-
rageous violation of constitutional principles and
practice." He says nothing to prove the truth of
this extreme view of the matter, and contents him-
self by inveighing against it. The great town con-
stituencies have effected all the " wise changes"
that have been forced upon Parliament, he says,
and, therefore, it is wrong to modify their in-
fluence. This is hardly correct, because it was
found quite impossible to get those who repre-
sented the great town constituencies to agree
among themselves or with their leader,
and, finally, they had to hand over the
work of Reform to their opponents to
deal with it as best they could. It may be remem-
bered en passant that Mr. BRIGHT did not seem
very anxious to extend the number of voters to
Birmingham, for he objected to the limits of the
town constituency being enlarged, and some of the
Opposition leaders in the Upper House took the
same view of the case. Mr. BRIGHT concludes his
address by expressing a hope that he may explain
still further his views on a future occasion at the
Town Hall.

Mr. CARDWELL has been speaking at Oxford, and
drew the flattering conclusion that nearly all those
added to the register would support himself and his
colleague when the day of election arrived. Another
cause of hope he found in the recollection that so
many of the most intelligent and active-minded
members of the present Administration were find-
ing for themselves agreeable residences in her
MAJESTY'S distant colonial possessions, and from
this he considered that they were :afraid to risk
their chance of re-election. Mr. CARDWELL tried
to get over the awkward affair that had taken
place on his own side in one of the brightest
ornaments of the Liberal party being opposed to
Mr. GLADSTONE'S politics respecting the disesta-
blishment of the Irish Church. General regret
was experienced by the Liberal party at the time
of the grand debate on the subject, in find-
ing that the name of Sir ROUNDELL PAL-
MER was absent from the division-lists, but
now the hon. member for the city of Oxford
thinks that all is made perfectly satisfactory by the
explanation given by Sir R. PALMER the other day
of Mr. GLADSTONE'S views. It seems strange that
he should think so, for really it would have been
more consistent if Mr. GLADSTONE had endeavoured
to carry out his convictions when he had the oppor-
tunity and was in power than to have waited until
he was in opposition to make the attempt. The
question of expenditure was taken up by Mr. CARD-
WELL, and he dilated upon the great advantages to
be derived from having Mr. GLADSTONE at the Ex-
chequer, entirely overlooking the explanations given
by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other day as
to the legacies of increased expense which the
right hon. gentleman had left to his successors.
Mr. DISRAELI'S famous Mansion-house speech made
its appearance at this meeting, and Mr. CARDWELL
discovered that the First Lord of the Treasury had
changed his tone, for at the beginning of Parlia-
ment he had spoken of the people below the limit
of £lO rental as an "indiscriminate multitude," but
on the latter occasion he had said that the extension
of the franchise was safer than it would have been
in a "more contracted circle," as over refinement
and education led to "perversity of opinion and
affectation of philosophy." Some of the remarks
made since the closing of the Parliamentary
Session have gone far to justify this view of the
question, it must be confessed.
The Conservative candidates for Cambridgeshire
have addressed the electors. Viscount ROYSTON,
the Comptroller of the Royal Household, said that
he came forward because it had been said that he
was not going to appear at the election for the
county. He had not come before because Mr.
BRAND had given him to understand that no can-
vassing need take place till September. Respecting
the charge of inconsistency which was brought against
the Conservatives for having passed a Reform Bill,
the noble lord very truly said that he wondered at
any follower of Mr. GLADSTONE'S presuming to do
so, when that right hon. gentleman changed so
often himself and induced his supporters to follow
his example. Concerning the question of Ireland,
the noble lord declared that the argument for the
disestablishment of the Irish Church rested on a
wrong basis, because he did not believe that the
Fenians had ever taken note of the religious part
of the topic in discussing the wrongs and grievances
of the country. Besides that, the Liberals had been
in such a hurry to bring the question before Par-
liament that they could not say how they meant to
appropriate the funds when their proposed change
was effected.

There is one point of minor morality in which we
as a "nation of shopkeepers" appear to be lament-
ably deficient. English good faith and honesty in
trade used to be a Lind of proverb, but if we are to
judge from the return just printed by order of

the House of Commons they will not be so much
longer. We have already lost much of our national
prestige in the way of large manufactures and ex-
tensive commercial dealings, thanks to the false
theories which have obtained favour among our
working men, who no longer put in as good work
as possible and do their best heartily. The good old
text, " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with
thy might," recommends a doctrine which has quite
gone out of favour, and a wretched system of superfi-
cial work has taken its place. Employers complain'
with some apparent reason, that their men are much
more anxious to raise the standard of wages a few
pence than to do their work creditably, and to give
a fair day's work in return for them, and it would
not be difficult to multiply instances of the same
lack of thorough honesty of intention and action in
many walks of life. The social philosopher might
trace many of the complicated disorders which dis-
arrange our social system to manifestations of this
want of integrity and earnestness. Examples of
striking individual cases will readily occur to the
memory of any one conversant with the facts of
our commercial history during the last few years.
But the return with which we have now to deal
refers to offences of another order, though unhap-
pily they are very common, as its very lengthy
pages show. The extent to which false weights and
measures are employed by small retail tradesmen in
the metropolis is very little known. During six
months the number of convictions for such offences
was 659, and this number can only be a portion of
the actual sum total, since, in the first place,
several large parishes are not included in
it ; and, in the second, we must remem-
ber that great numbers of similar offenders
escape detection for every one that is convicted.
The extent of the evil is shown also by another re-
flection. These men were not fined for a single
offence, bat for an offence which entailed a whole
series of petty robberies. The defective weights
and treacherous measures had been in constant use
before their owners were detected, and the amount
of loss inflicted on the class least able to bear it is
something very great. We are all well aware that
poor people pay at an exorbitant rate for all their
petty purchases, and that the odd halfpenny or far-
thing put on the ounce of tea or the half
pound of sugar would if charged in the same pro-
portion on to the pound or the peck astonish a
wealthier and more independent purchaser. For
this sort of loss, however, the poor man must be
prepared, as well as for the lets definite but not less
certain loss that ensues to the consumer from buy-
ing goods in " driblets." But he has as goad a
right to demand and to expect full weight and good
measure for his quarter of a pound or his half pint
as the rich man for the contents of his canisters
and barrels. It is painful to think of the anxious
housewife conjuring how to make the shil-
ling go furthest in supplying the wants of
her large family, and then paying a penny or two
of it in unfair profit to a dishonest shopman. It is
not in regard to the luxuries of life that these petty
frauds are committed, but in homely matters of
every-day consumption among the greengrocers,
coal dealers, cheesemongers, butchers, and bakers.
Some trades figure in the list from whose dealers
we should not generally look for such rigid exacti-
tude as from others ; but if the costermongers
of Marylebone and the marine store-dealers
of Westminster are not to be too se-
verely judged, what are we to say of the
cheesemongers of St. Pancras and the licensed
victuallers of Kensington ? Westminster figures
most discreditable in the list. One hundred
convictions are recorded, and of these one-
fourth belong to the licensed victuallers and beer-
sellers. Westminster, too, claims the unenviable
dignity of having the majority of repeated offences.
As a general rule the convictions are for a first
offence, the culprit being probably too wary to
allow himself to be again entrapped after the same
fashion. We can hardly suppose, however, that a
fine of a few pounds will change the whole character
of the man who is :not very likely to give
his customers their money's worth, and who will
certainly take his dishonest profit in some way or
another. Viewed in this light the Return before
us gives an uncomfortable impression o£ the spirit
in which a very large proportion of our metropolitan
trade is carried on. We have first to take into
account the number of offenders who escape detec-
tion ; secondly, we have to put aside those who
have been previously convicted, and who have been
too cautious to break the law openly again ; and,
thirdly, we must remember that no returns are
made from several large :parishes, Southwark,
Newington, and Lambeth, which, we have good
reason to know, are anything but immaculate in all
their dealings. Mr. lIUGIIEs, M.P., who is always
frank and fearless, manfully told his constituents of
their errors in this respect, and so drew down upon
himself a storm of virtuous indignation. Previous
returns, as well as the current reports of the day,
give the observer grounds for knowing that a re-
turn of convictions for false weights and measures
which does not include Lambeth and Newington
must be regarded as incomplete, and yet
with these notable exceptions the convictions in
six months are between six and seven hundred.
The commercial morality of the metropolis is, we
fear, at a low ebb, and the mania for growing rich
too fast and for enjoying the fruits of our labours
before the due time, which is the great evil of the
day, has not failed to affect the small traders. Their
predecessors of another generation were content to
live decently, and look forward to an old age of
competency and comfort; but the small shopkeeper's
wife of Lambeth or Finsbury must now dress her.
self and her family in a style which the old mer-
chant's relatives never dreamed of. Such a system
bears its own fruit, and leads to a thousand evil
consequences. Happily, this matter of false weights
has already been brought before Parliament, and
will, we may hope, receive due attention in the
next session.

Mgr. Luigi Filippi, Bishop of Aquila, has just
published a work on modern spiritualism. His
eminence expounds the doctrine of the Church on
the subject of good or rebellious angels, and shows
that the present facts with which people occupy
themselves now-a-days have their prototype in
the Old Testament as well as in the annals of the
Church.

FATHER IGNATIM—Father Ignatius had another
overwhelming congregation at the one o'clock ser-
vice on Friday, every inch of the church was occu-
pied, and some hundreds of people stood out in
Lombard-street, having vainly struggled for admis-
sion. Of the congregation at least three-fourths
were men—the large majority evidently busy city
men, who rapidly ran off directly the service was
over. Of the remainder a large proportion were
clergymen. Mr. Lyne preached from the fourth
chapter of the 2d Book of Kings, verse 1, " The
creditor is come." He at once arrested the attention
of his large auditory by the naive declaration that
creditors were a nuisance, a fact which he said would
scarcely be disputed in that great city, where little
else than debtors, creditors, and money making
were ever thought of. lie said the congregation
would be horrified to hear that the rich people who
assembled in such large numbers there on the pre-
vious Friday morning gave only £3 to the offertory
collection, while a poorer congregation, assembled
on the following Sunday evening, gave double that
amount. These offerings were given entirely to the
institutions which are under his care, and which, he
was glad to say, were working satiaactorily.