The Sun.
London, England, 1868-06-19 00:00:00

.r. OA' D 0 N , FRID.IY, JUNE 19, 1868

The members of the Upper House arc apparently
determined that people should not be deprived of
the pleasure of putting themselves or their relations
out of the world by mistake. The ingenuity with
which several peers and their correspondents set to
work to discover possible, if not probable, cases, in
which the use of the poison bottle for dangerous

and fatal liquids might fail to protect those who
used it was so successful that the very real and
every-day danger of an ignorant nurse or a care-
lass patient, or a thoughtless servant, ap-
pears to them quite secondary. It reminds
one of the German story of the imagi-
native servant maid who was sent through
a narrow passage to a beer cellar, and who
calle'l the household together in alarm by her cries.
If there had been a hatchet overhead, and it had
fallen down as she passed, it might have chopped
her head off. Equally imminent are the dangers
that threaten the careless use of the poison bottle.
A physician in an urgent case might send to a
chemist for some particular poisonous drug in a
hurry. The chemist in question might be just at
that time without a poison bottle in his capboard,
and therefore he could not give the medicine. This
is Lord SALISBURY'S spectre, not to be laid of course
by the consideration that the chemist need not let
his stock of bottles get so low, or that there
is usually more than one chemist in a neighbour-
hood, and that it would be possible to get the bottle
from another. The Earl of KIMBERLEY has another
fear. A chemist not given to change has suggested
to him that a case might arise in which prussic acid
in a diluted form would be dispensed for internal
doses, together with an external lotion of bella-
donna. Both would have to be dispensed in poison
bottles, so there would be no guarantee the wrong
one was not swallowed. Here again it might be
suggested that the use of the poison bottle would
at least make the patient or his attendant more
careful by suggesting the idea of danger. Then,
again, the Marquis of SALISBURY, who has an espe-
cial antipathy to the poison bottle, thinks such a
protecting interference on the part of Government
is opposed to the principles of our Legislature. We
have never hitherto, he thinks, acted upon the prin-
ciple of protecting sensible people from possible
dangers merely because foolish people might
have it in their power to injure themselves.
But the line between wise and foolish is
not so easily drawn. We are all apt to ba
heedless or negligent at times, and Lord REDESDALE
very justly found a parallel case, in which the law
made people take care of themselves, in the legisla-
tion which forbade persons to get out of a train
while in motion. Such instances might easily be
multiplied. In mines it is necessary to impose
penalties to make the men use the safety lamp and
forego their pipes. In all factories it is necessary
to make certain regulations to check the rashness
which endangers life and limb, and the law has
sanctioned and endorsed many such. Besides the
poison bottle would be as useful to guard sensible
people against the carelessness of foolish ones as to
protect the foolish themselves. An illiterate ser-
vant or a child would know the shape
of a peculiar bottle, while its adoption
would be no more objectionable than the rule which
now makes the label " Poison" compulsory on cer-
tain liquids. Lord REDESDALE expressed his willing-
ness to leave the details of the matter to the de-
cision of the Privy Council and of the Pharma-
ceutical Society, but the terrible pictures drawn by
the Marquis of SALISBURY and the other speakers
frightened the Peers, and they negatived the clause
by 45 to 31. Lord KIMBERLEY is therefore relieved
of his apprehension that their lordships would be
killed by act of Parliament, since they have been so
very fearful of doing what was wrong that they
have declined to do what was right !

The House of Commons has again made progress,
and we can now confidently assert that the chief
work of the Session is over. First of all, some de-
sultory conversation ensued as to the best mode of
managing the business before the House, and Mr.
DISILtELI kept firm to the practice of morning sit-
tings, declaring that by that means they could the
more easily and effectually ge:t through the work
before them. Mr. M. Gieseer made some unne-
cessary remarks upon the inconvenience of put,ing
in the Electric Telegraphs and other bills between
the Reform and Boundary Bills, but in reality this
objection was a most frivolous one, for of what
consequence can it be after all which comes
first, provided that all are properly attended to ?
The conduct of some of the more leading members
of the Opposition is quite unworthy of statesmen,
and they entirely ignore, in their desire to avenge
their particular wrongs, the general impression that
they are thus making upon the public by their in-
consistent course. One day they harass and per-
plex the Government by declaring that this and
that measure must be settled before the session is
over ; then they affirm that the Dissolution ought
to take place at once. Not content with these de-
vices, they proceed to a third dodge, and discover
that the only way in which the important work can
be accomplished in the given time will not do, and
forthwith one after another puts forward a ques-
tion. Heppi;y for their own dignity and the inte-
rests of fair play, the occupants of the Treasury
benches have continued to be a match for these
schemers, but not the less are we called upon to
protest against the unsuitable nature of their ac-
tions, for it is a policy unworthy of the character
of the English Parliament, and it is quite con-
temptible to see the desire for place infuse so bitter
a spirit and create so factious a course as that of
which we have so many and really notable in-
stances, day by day and night by night. One thing
is certain, namely, that the Government have con-
trived to get through the work of the session in the
most suLprising m tuner, which proves in a very
sufficient manner that they are as anxious to hasten
the time of trial as their opponents can be. Upon
the House going into Committee on the Irish Reform
Bill, Mr. DISRAELI entered into some explanation
of the course that the Government intended to pur-
sue with respect to it. They had, in the first in-
stance, been impressed by the conviction that it was
not easy to settle the particulars of the Redistribu-
tion of the seats in Ireland, but that they had acted
quite irrespective of party motives throughout,' as
they should do now. The right hon. gentleman
was certainly justified in saying that what had been
proposed by the Government had been unfavour-
ably received on both sides of the House. In order to
trace the causes of this the Premier entered into the
different characters of the English and Irish borough
representation. Finally, he announced that the
Government had resolved to withdraw the Redis-
tribution part of the bill altogether.
On the whole this is the best thing that can be
done, and we must bear in mind two things in con-
nection with this subject. First of all, that it is
much more difficult to legislate for Ireland than fur
England or Scotland ; and next that the temper of
the House of Commons is not at all like what it
was last year. Mr. GLADSTJNE has contrived to
confuse things, and perplex people to such a degre
that a calm and comprehensive inquiry is quite out
of the. question. The dogs of war are let loose,
will not be chained up until a general rehabili-
tation has taken place. Evety mischievous meieber
who on al...Hilary occasions is kept in check by the
decorum of the House now cors!ders that he has
full licence to disturb the business of the Session,
and to interfere on every imaginable opportunity
as the spirit moves him. Hence the objections of
Mr. GOLDSMID and Mr. HArrER, on the different
treatment which the English and Irish small
boroughs had received, were not valid oneo. The