The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TEE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

According to the Saturday Review, the prorogation
brought, not merely the end of the Parliament that has
just sat, but the close of an order of things that passes
away and gives place to a new order. The system of
government ushered in by the Reform Bill of '32 has come
to an end. The Parliaments that used to be called the
Reformed Parliaments will be no more. The reign of the
ten-pound householder is over, and a chapter of English
history is made up, and its roll sealed for good or evil.
In endeavouring to anticipate the verdict of history on
the present epoch, the Saturday Review thinks it will be
corsidered remarkable for its astonishing Conservatism.
The Reform Bill of '32 did not bring any alteration in the
three distinguishing characteristics of this country, which
were these—that she was a great Power, with all the
virtues and vices, the responsibilities and the energies, of
a great Power ; that monarchy, aristocracy, and demo-
cracy combined to make up the English political system ;
and that the centre of public and social life was
in Parliament, and especially in the House of Commons.
How, then, does it happen that an order of things
marked by so decisive a conservatism, and inspired by
ideas so dear to this generation, and so great and noble in
themselves, has come to an end ? The answer seems to
be that the causes which have wrought a revolution so
often elsewhere have wrought a revolution here also. The
men are no longer suited to the times. They cannot any
more keep themselves up to the level of thought and action
which what has already been done imposes on them. We may
not be going to have a better time ; in many respects we
must expect to have a worse time. Many of the new
ideas that will force themselves into notice will be silly
and perverse, and must be combated in the interests of
truth and equity and right reason. But it was impossible
to adopt, sift, or reject them under a Parliamentary
system from which the virtue had departed. A new order
of things was wanted, and it has come ; and we may be
satisfied that it was right it should come, without thinking
that it is going to bring with it a golden age, or that all
that rash men ask for under it should be given them.

The Spectator says that on the whole Mr. Disraeli has
shewn nothing like the cleverness and command of the
House which he shewed last session, perhaps because he
has lowered the whole tone of the House by his ostenta-
tious " management," and though on the great subject of
the session he has displayed an unscrupulous solemnity of
Protestant zeal which has rendered him even nauseous,
yet with all this he has struck a series of patient, skilful,
and, so far as they go, successful blows at political cor-
ruption, which impress us as earning for him almost his
very first true honour in political life. Mr. Gladstone
on the other hand, has been singularly sagacious
as well as earnest -in his larger statesmanship ;
he has restored sincerity to one of the hollow
and traditional professions of his party, hitherto mere
idle words ; he has taken a great step towards convincing
the Irish nation that there are English statesmen who
sincerely wish to look at the political wants of Ireland
with Irish rather than English spectacles ; he has prose-
cuted this most delicate and difficult task with a gentle-
ness, a temper, a practical mastery of his subject, and an
earnest simplicity of treatment, which have taken all the
sting out of his policy to those who have had the wisdom
and capacity to judge it fairly; he has been patient and
playful in brushing away the political mosquitoes which
have as usual attacked him in clouds ; in a word, on all
matters of the first weight he has grown as rapidly as his
rival has dwindled ; but, notwithstanding, on smaller
matters he has not been free from error of a vexatious
kind.

The London Review, commenting on Mr. Leeman's
clause proposed on the Regulation of Railways Bill, con-
siders that it cannot be said that we have too many gua-
rantees fur the caution and diligence of our railway com-
panies. A lung list of painful cases has shewn that we
should rather desire more of them than less. To ask us
to surrender the most efficient one we possess was a bold
step on the part of the railway companies ; and we must
do them the justice to say that they took that step with an
openness and candour which left nothing to be desired.
It would have been a public misfortune had Mr. Leeman's
clause been accepted by the House. But the truth is that
it was too essentially absurd to have any chance of success.
A man's life is to be estimated by its value to himself
and family, and there can hardly be a better criterion of
that value than the income he has been receiving, the
number of persons who are dependent upon it, and the
loss they will sustain through his being incapacitated by
death, or injury short of death, from earning it any
longer. The attempt to limit the liability of the com-
panies by an arbitrary line was unjust ; but to limit it by
a scale graduated according to the class in which the
aggrieved passenger might happen to ride was ridiculous.
The John Bull rebukes the apathy of some Conserva-
tives. Let us admit that electioneering at no time—
least of all in hot weather—is the occupation we should
choose. Public-houses, election agents, tiresome electors
with scruples and crotchet; clamorous wives of others
anxious to have their rent paid up and their little bills
settled, these no doubt are not visions which enchant the
imagination of those who know what an election is. But
it is useless to repine at the necessary price which must be
paid to obtain those mystic letters M.l'. which are the
title the people can confer. Woe betide the country when
her landed gentry cease to covet the proud distinction, and
retire into selfish privacy, while self-made pushing mercan-
tile men sit in the seat of council. But our contention is
that the people infinitely prefer the gentleman to the
novus honzo, however full his purse ; and that the aristo-
cracy tand the country gentry may win in a canter.
We thank Mr. Horsman for his bold address to the
electors of Stroud. It may be that it is a mere
device to bring back to himself the support of the extreme
Radicals in the borough, but it is none the less significant.
His plan-to reform the House of Lords is, we may
rely on it, but the foreshadowing of many a
similar and yet bolder flight. Shall Englishmen con-
tinue their slumbers so long that the piecemeal attack
on our most cherished institutions shall succeed ?
Our enemies are far too wise to propose the disestablish-
ment of the English Church, the abolition of the House of
Peers, or the division of the land at once. But let therebe
no mistake. These are the aims of the revolutionary party.
Nonconformity and Liberalism have ever been allied.
Shall the miserable dissensions among Churchmen and
Conservatives, arising out of an idolatrous worship of the
clever leader of the Liberals, whom the Dissenters are
using for their own purposes, allow the altar and the
throne to be laid low? We trove not.

The Imperial Review sketches the movements of the
session, and says that the accession to the Premiership of
Mr. Disraeli, rather than of either Lord Stanley—whose
name had at times been suggested—or of one of those
members of the Cabinet who occupy the Treasury Bench
of the House of Lords, seemed, at first, to give general
satisfaction. Mr. Bouverie, after speaking of his own
party as a rabble, with leaders who would not lead, and
followers who would not follow, and severely condemning
the proposed legislation on the land question in Ireland,
which had found favour with many of the extreme
members of his own party, regretted that the Premier
had not attempted to form a coalition, as there could
be no question of principle to prevent it. Sir George
Bowyer's tone was markedly conciliatory. The ad-
vanced Liberals seemed to approve the elevation of a
man who, without powerful or wealthy connections, had
gained the highest place by genius. But it soon appeared
that, misinterpreting the Conservative policy of last year,
they anticipated from Mr. Disraeli the sacrifice of all the
cherished views of the Conservative party. The Irish
debates brought the matter to the test. The Opposition
had demanded an Irish policy from Ministers, on the
ground that the necessary measures of coercion required
measures of conciliation. Mr. Disraeli, therefore, could
not be charged with having been the first to challenge the
opinions of Parliament on the affairs of that country. As
none of the grievances of Ireland, be they what they may,
were in any way new, it might have been felt that what
had for years baffled the wisdom of Parliament was not
to be cured satisfactorily in the short interval before the
Reform Bill came into operation. Mr. Disraeli, however,
when called upon to act, chewed a sufficiently liberal
spirit towards the Irish Roman Catholics. But he was
not prepared to attack the existing rights of the Pro-
testant Church, and the overthrow of that Church became
the rallying-cry on which all sections of the Oppositio'
were united against him.

Samuel Ellis, a labourer, has been taken before
the St. Asaph magistrates for cutting a donkey's throat.
He had previously cut off one of its ears. It is rumoured
that the poor brute disturbed him by braying when he
went courting a woman living next door. He pleaded
insanity.

TREATMENT OF SUNSTROKE.—The patient should
oe placed in a recumbent position in the coolest po3:ible
place, with a free current of air. The clothes should be re-
moved, and cold water applied to the whole surface ; or, if
the symptoms be urgent, the clothes should immediately
be saturated with cold water without waiting to remove
them. If the respiratory movements be fail:ng and Lehi,.
the cold douche is a powerful excitor ; but if the breathing
be rapid and laborious, it is better to envelope the body in
a wet sheet, and to quicken evaporation and cooling by.'
fan or a pair of bellows. If the patient can swallow, le
him drink iced water freely. Whether he can swallow o:
not, iced water may from time to time be injected. The
marvellous effect of hot venous injections in cholera
collapse, and the urgent need for cooling the blood in
heat-apnoea, suggest the expediency, in extreme cases,
of injecting into a vein the same saline solution as has
r frequently been employed in cholera, only injecting
at cold instead of hot.—Brio.l4 Medical Journal.

DAMAGES FOR MALICIOUS PROSECUTION.—At the Cam-
bridge Assizes the case of Cockle v. Blow, which was an
action for damages on account of a malicious prosecution,
was heard. The plaintiff was engaged by the defendant,
who is a farmer, to convey butter to a wholesale dealer.
In January last this person stated that no butter had
reached her for some time past, and in the end the
plaintiff was charged with felony, but acquitted at the
sessions. The jury awarded £2O damages.
ARSON AND SHEEP-STEALING.—At the same assizes,
Jonathan Breed pleaded guilty to setting fire to a stack of
wheat at East Hatley, and a7so to feloniously killing a
sheep, both of them the property of the tame owner, Mr.
Edwards. It appeared that the prisoner, having had a
quarrel with his master, out of revenge first set fire to the
stack, destroying property worth £2OO, and then killed one
of his master's sheep. He was sentenced to twelve years'
penal servitude.
THE Munrxv RIOTS AT A STITON.—At the Manchester
Assizes, John Flynn, 28 ; Daniel Flanaghan, 39 ; Patrick
Hanley, -49 ; Edward Kenny, 22 ; Patrick Carny, 27 ;
Robert Duff, 22 ; Wm. Cusick, 58 ; Thomas Harley, 19 ;
Lawrence Delaney, 19 ; James M`Dermot, 18 ; Patrick
Quinn, 16 ; and James Flannery, 65, were indicted for riot
and assault at Ashton-under-Lyne on the 10th May. The
oase was briefly stated by the counsel for the prosecution,
and after the examination of one or two witnesses the
case was adjourned to the succeeding day.
THE MURDER OF A COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER.—At the
Shrewsbury Assizes, George Harris, a chainmaker, was
indicted for the wilful murder of Barnard Zusman, at
Stuckley,7on the 15th of November 1867. There are
seventy witnesses in the case. It was proved that the
deceased left the Rose and Crown Inn with a blackoiled
case, containing watches and chains. He stated that he
should return to dinner, but never did so. On the day
that the deceased was murdered the prisoner exhibited
two new watches and a chain. When the person to whom
the prisoner showed the things was summoned to the
coroners's inquest the accused said he would give him
a watch if he (witness) would tell the jury that
on the morning of the murder he had seen the de-
ceased at Dawley , in company with a strange man carrying
an oil-cased parcel, with a strap round it." On the day of
the last inquest witness was returning from the court with
the prisoner, and in the course of the conversation about
the murder, he' said, " I'll lose my heart before I
split." After hearing some further evidence, the court
adjourned till the subsequent day.

The mortal remains of Lord Cranworth were
on Friday deposited in the churchyard of Keston, a retired
village a few miles beyond Bromley, in Kent, and close to
his lordship's seat, Holwood Park.

A Committee of the Lords of her Majesty's
Most Honourable Privy Council sat on Friday at the
Privy Council Office, Whitehall, on the subject of the
cattle plague. The lords present were the Lord President
and Lord Robert Montagu.
FORGERY OF BANK NOTES.—We have to caution
the public against a rather well-executed forgery of the
£lO note of the Bank of Ireland—the first, we believe, that
has appeared of that bank for a number of years. The
difference between the genuine notes and the forgery is,
perhaps, more readily perceived by a comparison of the
vignettes or figures and the word " Ten" at the sides. The
forgery which has appeared also bears date 1866, whereas
there is no genuine note of that denomination dated in
that year.—Freeman's Journal

STATE OF THE CROPS IN IRELAND. —Rain has
fallen more or less all over the north of Ireland, and a
decided improvement is reported in the green crops
everywhere. Potatoes seem now safe to be a
very fine crop abundant and good. Turnips have
been improved by the rains ; but, as a whole,
they will be deficient. Hay has been well secured—
light but good. Oats have improved in some quarters,
Lut the complaint of shortness in the straw is very general.
Wheat bids fair to be as good a crop as it is possible to
have it. Everyone speaks of it as strong, tall, and
healthy. Flax-pulling is very general, but the return
will decidedly be below the average. Steeping is
going on, but under difficulties, as water. is very scarceer
Northern Whig. .4--