The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-25 00:00:00

Li-iniT OF TIP PITBLIO JOURNALS,

The public will learn with great satisfaction that ICir.
Spelt© is fluid to be alive and *ell. He is said to be living
at Padstoly, Cornwall. Bnt, asks the Tinib, what is the
cause of his extiaordinary escapade t §Uppo-Sing him to
be in possession of all his ficultie;, and to h4v^e committed
this net with the delibeiite resolution of withdrawing him-
self either for a time or perifinently from the society of
all who knew him, it is difficult to imagine a more heart-
less and mischievous act. He has brought the most
poignant distress on his friends, he has subjected them to
infinite inconvenience tiAa- anxiety, he has inflicted no
little labour on the police, and he has terrified the more
timid part of the public beyond measure. In short, he has
made a public scandal, for which ho will assuredly have to
do penance. A man has, indeed, a right to go where he
pleases, but he has no right to make off undercircurastances
which must bring suspicion of the most heinous crime
upon the neighbourhood, and possibly upon some innocent
person. Ire has no right to make appointments for the
purpose of persuading the world that he intended to go
out only for an hour, the necessary consequences being a
belief that he has met a violent end. Such conduct is not
only an offence against morality, but against the public
peace, though from its rarity it has never been brought
under the penalties of the law. This strange affair con-
firms a remark we made in first commenting upon the
subject—that it was a mistaken method to suggest only
reasonable hypotheses when speculating on actions which
were probably completely unreasonable. It is quite
natural that people in general should have thought it
impossible that Mr. Speke should be alive and in posses-
sion of his liberty. They could not conceive such cunning
and perversity as were indicated by the order to the
groom to be in waiting the next evening at the station,
the buying of the 'hat, and the appointment made
for half-past six ; that, moreover, he should leave family
and friends in the deepest trouble, and remain indifferent
to every call of affection or honour week after week. But
experience in the morbid part of human nature teaches
that men do these things, and that the very qualities
which make the action strange and repulsive to the rest of
the world exercise a fascination over them. After the
painful anxiety this event has produced, it will be a relief
if we are assured that it has only been the result of eccen-
tricity and folly carried to their extremes, and that there
is no reason to believe London to be more unsafe now than
it has hitherto been. Great crimes are rare in this metropolis,
considering its enormous extent and population, and it
may be said confidently that in no great city of the world
arc the streets more safe to one who goes about his busi-
ness steadily and soberly.

For the full and complete solution the Herald supposes
we must wait awhile, until it shall please the person best
able to inform us upon the matter. But that some such
explanation will be forthcoming we can hardly doubt. Mr.
Speke owes it to himself, no less than to his family, his
friends, and the public, to tell us not only why he left
London, but why, when he had left it, he remained so
obstinately silent as to his whereabouts, while his name
was in everybody's mouth, and placards offering £5OO for
his discovery were on every street wall. At the same
time, what we know already shows how difficult it is to
draw a correct inference from a given set of somewhat
singular circumstances. A number of sharp-witted folks
have busied themselves in accounting for the missing cler-
gyman, and almost by common consent they satisfied
themselves that he had been brutally murdered. The
facts were elicited bit by bit, but we were assured that
they all chewed a settled purpose in coming to London,
and a series of arrangements for spending his time while
in it, rendering any sudden start highly improbable. We
shall hope to hear before long.what Mr. Spoke has to say
for himself; or what his friends can say for him. It
may be that he went off on some sudden impulse, but why
did he keep silence so long ? Perhaps he will publish his
experiences in a handsome volume, for though he has not
gone very far, he must have.a good deal to tall.

It has long been a common complaint of our ambassa-
dors and Ministers, the Post reminds us, that they are
unable to negotiate with effect, because every petty prince
and his courtiers are aware that there is nothing to gain
or lose by them. We have treated our diplomatic service
of late years in the same manner as we have treated all
the other belongings of the old privileged class. We have
made it thoroughly uncomfortable and =remunerative.
There is no caren. in the service of the Crown so
thoroughly unprofitable and discouraging. The road to
diplomatic honours is long and difficult. When they are
attained they are not worth having: It is not going too
far to say that there is not a single British embassy or
mission of which the salary is equal to the official claims
upon it. The public, and especially the House of
Commons, is apt. to think that no one is concerned
in this grievance but the ambassadors themselves ;
and that there is certainly no want of candidates
for.diplomatic employment. The truth, nevertheless, re-
mains, that a physician, a barrister in fair practice, or a
prosperous clergyman, are far better paid while living in
privacy:at home than the men who, towards the close of
life, are at last promoted to represent the majesty and
power of England at the most brilliant Courts in the
woad. An embassy of the right sort would have pre-
vented the war in Persia a few years ago, as it did for-
meily in the time of Sir John Malcorm ; and ten or
twenty thousand pounds properly expended at the right
time would have saved us all the millions we are now
throwing away in Abyssinia. Moreover, it is worth con-
sideration that money expended on the sober magnificence
of foreign embassies is no loss to the national treasury
whatever. Missions of cqaal splendour are returned to
us,and we may by active negotiations reap whatever trade
advantage we will without the burden of wars. By and
by, in due course also, the Sovereign often comes himself
to see us, and pays his travelling expenses royally in fifty
wan. It may be worth while to think of these things
before our penny wisdom brings about some other little
war.

It is doubtful, says the Daily News, whether the United
States Congress will be content to leave the President in
the undisputed possession of the Presidency till the end of
his .term. The crisis of the dispute between the two
hostile powers of the Government has now evidently
arrived. But nothing can be mole unfortunate for himself
than the clumsy and un.3tatesmanlike way in which Mr.
Johnson has brought the crisis about. His correspondence
with General Grant has been read all over the Union, and
has rendered it clear to both friends and enemies that Mr.
Johnson is actively desirous to frustrate the law which
it is his function to execute. He seems to be de-
termined to push matters to extremes, and his
opponents never had so many reasons to accept the issue
and to fight it out at once. He has never consented to
compromises, and seems now to have resolved to force on
Congress an uncompromising policy. With what hope, or
with what calculation of chances, if with any, he does
this it is hard even to guess, unless he speculates on the
possibility of nomination for the Presidency by the com-
bined Democrats and disloyalists of both North and South.
But whatever his motives may be, his action is calculated
to undo his friends, and to serve his enemies.

The members of the United Executive Relief Committee
sitting at the Mansion House at their last regular weekly
meeting adjourned without making a single grant. It was
not that they were without funds.' Neither was relief
withheld because of any marked decrease in the excep-
tional distress in the East of London. But there was a
" strike" in the Isle of Dogs, or an allegation of a strike,
and the ugly question of trades-unionism was pressed home
on the attention of the committee by Mr. Samuda. Messrs.
Pontifex and Co. had that morning published a statement
that thirty carpenters, employed temporarily by them at
Miliwall (to repair, it was presumed, certain damages
caused by a recent fire), had struck work under circum-
stances which seemed to constitute a peculiar aggra-
vation. Supposing, says the. Standard, it were really
true that thirty men had struck work in the manner
stated, why should the committee stay their hands and
cease to mitigate the wide-spread distress of the Eastern
parishes ? These carpenters were not shipwrights, and if
they were, it is evident that East London distress extends
much wider than the Isle of Dogs.
.But the question was
put on a very broad basis. The offer which Mr. Bullivant
had brought forward for the buildingg of one or two iron
ships hal fallen through, and there was too much reason
to fear that the failure was due to the interference of the
trades unions. • It was thought exceedingly likely that the
affair at Messrs. Porttifex's would be-traceable to a similar
cause, and it was suggested that there was danger lest the
rty
unionist clement should also receive auppo —directl
indirectly—from the charitable subscriptions of the Wilier
P
The case, the Standard admits, is a yen, sad one.
But
still, the United Executive was not constituted for the
purpoW6 of destroying trades unions, though it is un-
doubtedly the duty of its members to see, so far as lies
in their power, that public charity shall not by iwrverted
into the promotion of those restrictive and mischievous in-
st: tutions.

Sir rolulan O'Loghlen has, in the opinion of the Tile.
13
r 7,0, failcii into a common (Twat of amateur legislators,
and', in a measure just introduced, has mixed up together
thisu;s that aro tetallydistnct. Ills Bank Holidays' Bill has
two separate objects—one to increase the number of fixed
holidays for the spocial behoof of bank and custom-house
c!eilo=4 ; tho second, to consult the cenveniene,s of mer-
cantile men by altering the due date of bills. Some of the
provisions are undoubtedly improvements On existing prac-
tiee, red may be adopted ; others ought certainly to be
rejected. For instance, the enactment of a bank holiday
on the 2:lth of December, or St. Stephen's Day, as
Sir Colman persists in calling it, is an innovation
t'lat might cause grave inconvenience in Lomion. The
Lon. member can hardly be considered an authority on
such .matters as the business arrangements of this metro-
p ilia if he knew much about them, he would admit that
wh'ltt Boxing I)ay is an occasion of idleness and dissipa-
tion for two-thirds of those living within the sound of Bow
bells, it is a day of specially hard work for the remainder.
To enforce a cessation of bank facilities on that day would,
to a considerable extent, make the five following. days of
the
year a term of greater slavery than they now are., .by
compressing more labour within the short space. which
winds up the year's proceedings,

An POLIO.

THPORT'ATT -CASE BEFORE THE PENT COUNCIL.—An
application was made on Monday to the Judicial Cora-
mitteell the Privy Council for special leave to appeal
from a decision of the Court of Chancery at Bermuda.
The circumstances were peculiar, and the Colenso case, it
was mentioned, was supposed to govern the present one.
The governor of the colony had, on the part of the Crown,
presented a clergymen, and his induction had been re-
fused. There were two livings, and in one case ho was
opposed by force. The Crown applied to the dourt of
Chancery, and the application was refused on the ground
that the Colenso case was in point, but the Solicitor-
General submitted that it could not govern the present
application, as the Bishop of Bermuda and the bishops in
Africa► were different, and the same view could tot pre-
vail. Their lordships granted the application.

FRAUDULENT BANICRUPTCY.-At the Mansion House,
Alexander Hannah and William Patterson were charged
before Mr. Alderman Lusk, M.P., with various offences
under the Bankruptcy Act of 1361, with intent to defraud
their creditors. The prisoners had been grocers and tea-
dealers in the New North-road since the beginning of
1867, and for a short time they paid ready money for
their goods ; and within the three months previous
to their adjudication as bankrupts they had obtained
on credit from various wholesale merchants in the City
£2,000 worth of teas. As soon as the chests were
delivered in the New North-road they were sent to Glas-
gow, where they were sold by auction by direction of the
prisoners, by Messrs. John and James Morrison, of Ren-
field-street. The risoner Patterson had hired a room in
house in Elder-street, Edinburgh, in which he stored
upwards of 100 boxes of tea, of the value of about £l5O,
which were seized after the adjudication in bankruptcy,
by order of Mr. Commissioner Winslow. The prisoners
were apprehended at a fishing village in Wig,tonshire, by
John Mark Bull, a City detective sergeant, and Patterson
then gave up a book containing entries of all the transac-
tions with the London merchants and Glasgow auctioneers.
Both prisoners were committed for trial.