The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-10 00:00:00

aril= OP THE PUBLIC XOURNAL3.

The short despatch announcing that the Austrian frigate
Novara had arrived at Corfu with the body of the late
Emperor Maximilian on board will recall to the minds of
many the feelings of pity with which they first heard of
his melancholy end. On such an occasion the Times de-
votes a leader to the incidents connected with this remark-
able drama. The House of Austria, it remarks, acquainted
as it is with misfortune, has seldom had a more bitter lot
than to see one of its sons struggling hopelessly against
an implacable enemy, to learn that he had been merci-
lessly shot, and then to have to beg his body from the
chief of the triumphant faction. The Archduke possessed
the qualities which loyal natures generally associate with
princely rank. Ile was beyond all doubt bravo, generous,
singieminded, true to his word, and to what he consi-
dered his honour. He had shewn himself before his ex-
pedition singularly mild and placable ; he was believed
to have considerable administrative powers, for in
the last days of Austrian ascendancy is Italy he had
made the best of a hopeless position, and conciliated
personal respect where he could not hope for loyalty
to his office. His intellectual gifts, perhaps, were not
of the highest order ; if he had a vigorous under-
standing, it had been cramped by his education ; he was
a devoted son of the Church. He had also that
romance and enthusiasm in his character which are not
so much the accompaniment of a vigorous will as the sign
of a defective acquaintance with men and things. He had
some faith in his own talents, but more in his imperial
rank, his loftily beneficent intentions, and the political
principles he represented. Both his merits and defects,
however, contributed to form a character of which men
willingly make a hero. He will be described in history as
bold, chivalrous, and amiable, and any one who records
the events of his life will feel it an invidious task to point
out even his errors of temper and conduct in his Mexican
administration. His career is such as strikes the imagina-
tion, and it would be possible for a brilliant writer almost
to canonise him for posterity. A history might be
written, not conspicuously diverging from truth, in
which all the success of his life should be his own,
and all the failure should be attributed to his allies
and counsellors. What he might have been for
constitutional Austria and for renovated Europe may be
the subject of many plausible discussions. How ho was
seduced from his dignified retirement by the prospect of
an Imperial throne, by the opportunity of doing good, of
restoring peace to a disturbed society, and a noble coun-
try to the enterprise of the world ; how he went and did
his duty nobly ; how the French, who placed him on the
throne, abandoned him, after having induced him to lend
the sanction of his name to their own severities ; how he
refused to abandon his generals, his soldiers, and the
whole body of his adherents to their adversaries ; how he
hoped against hope, and fought in spite of the counsels of
prudence ; how he was betrayed, and how he died, may
furnish one of the finest chapters in the romance of history.
A still more pathetic interest may be given to the narra-
tive by the sufferings of his young wife, whose mission to
Europe displayed such devotion to her husband's cause,
and ended in so dark a calamity.

The Daily Hews observes that Lord Ranelagh, to take
his own account of himself, is performing a valuable public
service ; at a personal sacrifice, he is forcing railway direc-
tors to provide smoking carriages for passengers who like
a cigar. His method is a simple one—he sets their bye-
laws at defiance ; of course he gets fined, but, that done
directors arc at once struck with the impropriety of a state'
of things which has a consequence so shocking, and the
smoking carriages are immediately provided. He was
once so fined on the Richmond line, but within a week
afterwards smokers had the freedom of that railway.
On the 20th of December last Lord Ranelagh was a
passenger by the Metropolitan Railway, and smoking.
A guard named Parsons reminded him, as he had
done the night before, that the practice was not al-
lowed, when the noble traveller replied that "
would smoke, and be damned to him," and kept his
word. For this offence Lord Ranelagh has been fined
20s. at the Clerkenwell Police-court. Of course the
Metropolitan will now have its smoking carriages, for it
will never do to make the line a trap for distinguishesl
passengers. If so, Lord Ranelagh will deserve the thanks
of his brother smokers ; but whether, upon a larger view,
his proceedings are to be approved of, is another question.
Those who write for the ornamental portion of society are
constantly denouncing the decay of authority among us,
the increasing want of reverence for the law and for those
who have to administer it. There is a great deal of cant
in these piteous complaints, which have been heard in all
ages, and are often made merely to serve the purpose of
a party or a class. It is, however, for the convenience of
society that rules which have been deliberately made in
its interest should be obeyed ; it would be a greater mis-
fortune for most of the passengers by the Metropolitan to
find that the officers of that line were unable to control the
large and miscellaneous crowds which travel by its every
train than to lose the hope of getting a smoking compart-
ment.

The Herald contends that although the official record:
of the Reform League may shew that it is a most harmless
and orderly body, the spoken utterances of its members
tell a very different tale. From the time of the Hyde-
park outrage downward it has uniformly taken up
an attitude of opposition to the authorities and
the cause of law and order which they represent, and
the records of its discussions shew how violently these
tamely-warded resolutions are in conflict with the minds
and the wishes of those who endorse them. There is
no anti-social or disloyal movement afoot which does
not count its leaders among the members of the League.
It has given a quasi-approval to the hideous acts of
the Sheffield trade unionists, and its leaders have
been foremost in upholding the cause of the Manchester
murderers ; while even at this meeting on Wednesday
one of the speakers won a round of applause by fastening
upon the police the guilt of the Fenian assassins at Cler-
kenwell. The Leaguers are too modest in this respect, too
apt to veil their real sentiments, and " let I dare not wait
upon I would." Let them spew at least some courage in
espousing a bad cause, and rehearse to a meeting of
working men in Trafalgar-square such declarations of sym-
pathy with the Irish-American desperadoes as they ven-
tured on Wednesday. It is their boast that they represent
" the people" generally, and the working men of London
in particular. Let them proclaim their opinions upon
eniainsm befori,i the world, in open day, and take the
sense of their constituents thereupon. Shetland-yard is close
at hand, and no C:oubt the police will e,:tend to them the
protection which has already saved more than one of thcie
body under similar circumstances from rough treatment at
the hands of their special clients.

The Star believes that such discussions as those which
took place at the League meeting on Wednesday night
oder an cecuse for Mr. Disraeli's contemptuous and im-
pertinent allusions to " cosmopolitan jargon ;" for we
cannot expect the public in general to observe, or the
enemies of the League to admit, that these debates are
only started in a random, irregular way by a few members. •
and are discountenanced by the great majority. The
public in general find. fault with the League simply be-
cause it is a society in which such discussions take place ;
anu so far their complaint is not without justification.
'J bare is no necessary connection whatever between the
Reform League and continental or Irish revolution. It is
not called on to pronounce for or against either one or the
other. It might just as well Cliz;ell:fl theology, or tai
" marriage question," as it is called. The League has
plenty of work of its own to do, and has, moreover, plenty
of resources of ability and energy to do it. Look at the
programme Mr. Beales sketched out that very evening, a
programme of work coming strictly and properly witein
the seep° of the League's duties, and, what is more, quite
capable of full and satisfactory accomplishment. These
are the questions to debate—these are the fields in which
the labours of the League can be made to bear frill.
Members of the League, however well they may mean, da
ill service to itself and its work when they distract its at-
tention by the introduction of topics which can he dis-
cussed to no practical purpose but the purpose of discord
at the meetings of such a society.

The Standard comments on the vigorous gossip which :
now going on over the Channel. The quidnunc of diplo
macy abroad have discovered a new mare's-nest. Accord
ing to them we have sent out another mission to Italy.
Lord Clarendon takes the place of Lord Minto ; and the
ex-Foreign Minister is going about the Courts of Europe,
dropping in quietly at the. Tuileries, at Berlin, at
Florence, on his way to Remo. Ile is gone to promote
disarmament, to preach peace ; he is to prevent Italy
interfering in the impending war between France and
Prussia ; he is to sound the Pope about Ireland, and buy
off the clerical element of Fenianism. In short, there is
nothing too absurd or incredible to be asserted and be-
lieved abroad of his lordship's sayings and doise-:,s. Now,
continues our contemporary, we verdure to -assert that
Lord Clarendon has no snore a mission from the British
Government than he has from the Ruler of France ; and 1
we know his lordship to be too old a hand in diplomacy to
have been guilty of even a tithe of the indiscretions that
have been imputed to him by the continental press. Lord
Clarendon is travelling, as hundreds of his countrymen do
at this season, for his own convenience, health, and plea-
sure, and in Italy is as free from what we may term " busi-
ness engagements " as any other Englishman, en yam/ices,
whose good luck may enable him to winter at Rome.
The Telegraph is the only morning paper which devotee
a leader to the Queen's Diary, just published. It remind is
that a French King boasted, and rightly, that he "
only the first gentkinan in France :" it must have been
joy to the Qn: .n to have known that her home was but oa-
oi many like it, and that she had no Royal monopoly o'
that pure light of household loves which shines by so many
3::iiglish hearths. Cynics of, our day have translated
Cassandra into cant, and have given us quite a new creed
of despondency and gloom, showing that our politics are
base, our literature poor, our society decaying, our matrons
fast, our maidens immodest, our young men empty, mar-
riage uufa.3hionable, and that old institution an English
hoMi rapidly dying out. If we accepted as the truth these
sayings of middle-aged men about town—who forget the
flavour of life and make a microcosm of Mayfair--we
should hardly congratulate Queen Victoria on presenting to
her people a book so homely in the most genuine sense of the
-word ; but in almost every English house it will be a welcome
and well-appreciated New Year'sgift. Mrs. Hemans, in her
felicitous lines, sings of households where "lips move
tunefully along some glorious page of old." By English
firesides during the next week these new pages—this diary
of a good wife, a good mother, an English lady—will be
read aloud to listeners who Will share her joys, will under
stand her emotions, and will hear with tearful eyes the few
brief words that touch upon the grief which still sadden
her heart,