The Sun.
London, England, 1868-11-09 00:00:00

HOSPITAL for DISEASES of the THROAT,
GoHen-square, W.

President —His Gra'e the Duko of GRAFTON.
The Committee of Management earnestly APPEAL for
FUNDS to help them to meet the heavy current expenses.
Upwards of 18,000 poor persons have been relieved in the
last six years.

GEORGE WOOD, Secretary.

1111SCELLANEOUS IVETVS.

SIP, ROBERT PEEL.

Sir Robert Peel, when Secretary for Ireland, made
a rapid tour through the country in a jaunting car.
and came down to the House and declared that he
found Ireland most prosperous and contented. His
second impression of that tour is very different from
his first. He has just been telling his constituents at
Tamworth what terrible sights he saw, especially
in Galway; and now he attributes all the misery to
the spoliation of the Catholic landowners 200 years
ago. He is quite revolutionary in talking upon this
subject. He suggests that the great London com-
panies should be compelled to give up their estates
about Londonderry, and that Trinity College, Dublin,
should have to make a like surrender of its property.
In fact, he goes far beyond Mr. Bright on the land
question. But he is very shy about the Church.
He declines to commit himself, and says only that
he will support Mr. Gladstone as far as he can. The
truth is, that Sir Robert is such a strong anti-
Papist (which is a very different thing from being a
Protestant) that he cannot bear the idea of doing
anything which will, as he thinks, place the Protestant
religion in a worse, and the Popish religion in a
better, position than they occupy now.

MR. BRIGHT AT EDINBURGH.

The Spectator finds fault with its old friend. It no
longer lauds Mr. Bright to the skies. It even charges
him with " losing his caution ;" says his remarks were
"rash " for a coming Cabinet Minister ; and goes so
far as to declare that after his last speech at Edin-
burgh "it becomes difficult to think of him as the
head of a great military monarchy like India."
The Daily News, too, without really finding
fault with Mr. Bright, differs from him by
questioning whether others have so much foresight
as he—and by speaking of the millennium to which
Mr. Bright is looking as being very far distant. The
Times is afraid that the hon. gentleman is
putting forward very plausibly the especial error of
democracy. He thinks that it cannot be wrong to
interfere with a person to compel him to be virtuous.
The Times thinks freedom preferable to faultlessness.
But the Spectator really points out some serious
defections in the speech of the " tribune of the
people," as it has been of late the fashion of certain
Ministerial journals to call him. It first remarks
that Mr. Gladstone, " who likes a full treasury," will
not thank him for his " free breakfast-table " cry.
Some of his colleagues will look askance at his pro-
posals, sensible and moderate though they be,
about the land laws. And " there are
very few who will read his remarks on
war without a wince. He would not, apparently,
arm to save a free people from being crushed by a
foreign invasion, and would apparently disarm both
army and navy—thus openly inviting assault." Per-
haps, however, he does not mean all this. But
remembering that he said "Perish Savoy," that he
does not approve of the only substitute for armies—
national drilling—and that he holds campaigns like
Marlborough's, which saved the freedom of Holland,
to be mere acts of lunacy, the Spectator thinks it
difficult to look upon him as the future Secretary for
India.

THE "PHILOSOPHICAL RADICALS" AND Sllt
ROUNDELL PALMER.

There has been a great deal of comment on the
absence of certain well-known names from F.-
Roundell Palmer's Oxford committee. Among others
Professors Beesly and Harrison were severely cen-
sured by their own party papers. Professor Harrison,
however, writing to the Spectator, says thatbothhe and
Mr. Beesly sent in their names at the earliest opportu-
nity and without a moment's hesitation, but they have
not appeared in the earlier editions of the list. The
inference is, that the committee were afraid of such
extreme Radicalism asthat represented by the patron
of Moses. The Marquis of Salisbury at one end,
and the Professor at the other, would be a complete
representation of the opposition to Disraelism.