The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-08 00:00:00

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R• 'it

rl C.- Ls :

EC;IvE!.:2B JUL IE6B

RINAHAN'S LL. WHIsKy
, 1365.
P This celebrated OLD IRIErRIBITION.SH WHISKY
Pure, Mild, Mallow, Delicious, and very
'4°Rl in Bottles, 3s. Bd., at the Retail Honsi
the Agents in the principal towns in England;
8, GREAT WINDMILL-STREET, LO3
Observe the Red Seal, Pink Label and Oorl
LL Whisky."

JAPANESE IMPERIAL TROUPE,

No .23,684.

THE SUN, 'LONDON, i IDAY EVENING, IA I A_Y 8, 1868.

LYCEUM THEATRE.
DAY
MORNING PERFOR MANCES !Lnd SATURDAY, commencing at half-pas Twos, and ter
mating at half-past Four. The Day Entertainments, fully equal
lies ose of the Evening, are particularly recommended to Fami-
with Children, as they avoid the crush attending the Eight
clock Entertainments. boors open at Two.

THE FIFTEENTH ANNUAL EXUIBITION
-1- of PICTURES by FRENCH and FLEMISH ARTISTS IS
NOW OPEN at the GALLERY,I2O, PALL-MALL. A dmission, ls.;
Catalogue, 6d,

AFTER II Eit MAJESTY'S
DRURY-LANE—EVANS' TO SUP.
After Drury-lane Oper' EvANs' to SUP.
After Drury-lane Opera ' EVANS' to SUP.
After Drury-lane Opera EVANS' to SUP.
After Drury-lane Opera EVANS' to SUP.
After Drury-lane Opera EvAlcs' to SUP.
London Singing and Supper Club, EVANS', Covent-garden)
Voce) Entertainment at Eight.

OPERA,

WESTON'S
ROYAL MUSIC HALL, HOLBORN.
Proprietor, Mr. J. S. Sweasey.
TRIUMPHANT SUCCESS OF THE MONSTIIE ENTERTAIN-

MENT AT THIS HALL ONLY..
ItLE PETIT BLONDIN (the marvellous Rope D incsr),
ur• A. G. VANCE, Mr. J. G. FORDS, JOLLY NASH,
Vrss 8 MIT HS ON, Miss TREMA ENE. Miss BROUG EIAM,
• vLIVER'SM SIDNEY
INSTRELS.BARNES, Mr. R. LASCELLES, and
Mr. J. If usu, Chairman, from the Oxford.
'Pull
in London.' Orchestra allowed to be the bast band at any Music
liall
GREAT ALTERATIONS.—The whole of tho Area
blagnificonfly carpeted and reseatod by the eminent firm
Chandler and Co., of Holborn, and converted into tho
alost convenient Halls in London (vide the Public Press).
Separate entrance to the Private Boxes and Operatic
.10
14,ub °utiges. Places to be secured at Mitchell's, Sam's,
b's, and other librarians.

Mr. P. Coda, Musical Director.
N KATE SANTLY will appear shortly.
Pe sal al N
lotice• —Mr• P. P Corri's Annnal Benefit, l'hnrs-
`l4Y, 2.

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the age of twenty. These figures show bow ra-
pidly marriage in Massachusetts has decreased. The
portion of bachelors who marry in England out of
the ten thousand between 20 and 30, is 8,140, and
in France only 6,671. The death rate in England
and in France is, according to Dr. Farr, almost the
same, but the annual increase by births over deaths
in England is about three times greater in England
than in France. The birth rate in Massachusetts
•is intermediate between the English and French.
The Round Table says :—" A crusade for the sal-
vation of matrimony seems to have been inaugu-
rateditilus in
but ver
yAmtuaenr
yi ao
ft hoeu
rd anger
clergy
haves
aqvtet i t quite
beenas
in Europe among the priesthood of every
cimretelldin.enStV;
far too intent on saving the nation to interest them-
selves very deeply iu the perpetuation of the race.
Yet here perhaps more than anywhere else is an
effort necessary to stem the current of a constantly
increasing prejudice which seems to menace in time
a depopulation of the country. Dr. Storer, if we
are not mistaken, asserts on apparently good
authority that in the older States of the Union the
natural increase of the population proceeds entirely
from foreign immigration and the progeny of
foreign immigrants, the number of native births
showing a slight but constant decrease from year to
year, and it is matter of common remark that
marriages are getting to be rarer every year. The
prospect is such as no thoughtful man can deem
otherwise than alarming, and the problem must tax
all the ingenuity of the social philosopher to provide
a remedy. It is hardly possible to force men to
marry against their will, and it is difficult to per-
suade them. Women would doubtless be found
more amenthle to reason ; but leap year, unluckily,
is honoured more in theory than in practice. And
it is after all to the propagation of marriage that we
must address ourselves; the darker evil which we
have hinted at above, and against which not even
marriage is any safeguard, is from its very nature
almost beyond the reach of any influence but the
slow and gradual progress of enlightenment and the
force of medical and religious teaching. Besides,
it is useless to attempt to reform an institution
whichseemsto be in danger of dying out altogether
unless the hidden causes which are preying at its
roots be discovered and removed." It is the fashion
to throw much of the blame of this state of things
on women ; to point to their extravagance, to their
crusade for equal rights, to the growing taste for
refinement, and aversion from the toil and drudgery
of rearing a family and keeping up a home.
Nothing can be more unjust and even absurd than
these reasons. The mass of women take no interest
whatever in the Woman's Rightsanovement. They
are extravagant because fashion makes them so,
and men make the fa,hions. What men admire is
what women strive to be, and if tbl- profess to be
charmed by " fast" girls, girls will be fast. Marriage
is decreasing, not because women will not marry, but
because men will not, and men will not marry be-
cause they think they can procure more happiness
in the single state. Steam, by quickening travel,
has opened to all sections of a highly civilized state
the pleasures of a capital, which, as a general rule,
men would be compelled to forego if they encum-
bered themselves with a wife and family. Such
reasons are merely the weeds sprouting on the sur-
face, but so also is the fact. The decrease is a mere
temporary freak of fashion, which, in the end, will
correct itself. There are ebbs and flows in the
affairs of mankind which we may moralize over .as
we see the tide running, but the flow continues re-
gardless of all our wise and profound conjectures till
the limit is reached when the current stops, and pre-
sently flows back in the same volume, when the
philosophers on the bank begin moralizing as pro-
foundly on the new phase, predicting either the
over population or the depopulation of the globe.
It is not long since, that sages raised their warning
voice against the improvidence of young people
rushing into matrimony, and a well-known writer
discussed the means of existence furnished by the
globe being overtaken by the superabundant popu
lation.

The philosopher of the day considers that he can
improve upon the relation which binds the sexes.
It has not unfrequenily been the case that a sacred
law has been disputed, and an amendment proposed
by wise legislators. It has invariably, however,
been found, whatever the force of the theory, that
the proposal, in practice, was a disgraceful failure.
To maintain the solemn and sacred nature of the
ceremony is a matter of greater and more imme-
diate interest to womea than to men. Whatever
leads to immorality—that is, the infringement of
the Commandments—leads to the degradation of
the human race, and all eventually will suffer alike;
but the effects are first felt by women. Nature has
pointed out too clearly to be gainsayed that woman's
sphere is the house, that the main support of the
family in that house must come from the work of
the man, and that all laws, human and divine, must be
directed to support this proposition. Those who
assert a contempt formarriage, for priests, and
their useless and binding ceremony, strike at the
very foundations of society. They merely advance
a theory which suits their appetite, and would
doubtless be convenient for young men with unre-
strained passion, while ruinous to young women.
It would be found, however, in the long
run that even the men would reap a dis-
agreeable harvest. It is said that clubs work
strongly against marriage ; that is, that men there
find so agreeable a home, so comfortable and well-
' found an establishment, such a cheap and sumptuous
mode of living, that they prefer to enjoy its advantages
to the coarser fare with a wife. But what is the
experience of the club habitues—of the poor men
who have there attempted to suck up all the honey
of life? Doubtless it is agreeable so long as youth
and health last and pleasure does not pall. Yet we
believe that in any great club there will be as little
happiness found among the .regular old bachelor
frequenters as among any community. Were the
career of a young man who married imprudently,
and had to struggle thereafter for the means of ex-
istence for himself and his family, compared
with that of the old bachelor club habitue, who
was no more successful in life, the balance would
ratherincline in favour of the married man. If a
London club is remarkable for anything, it is re-
markable for the number of querulous, objectless,
ennuyed old gentlemen it produces ; and there are
few young men who enter it who would not scout the
idea of eventually joining their ranks. Yet it is to
this, and to this only, such theories lead. At a
meeting a fortnight ago at the Stamford Chapel,
Blackfriars, to discuss the subject of Female Suff-
rage, the president, Professor Fawcett, M.P.,
said :—" When man and women were put on
fair terms of equality the women held their
own. Some time since certain reformers at Cam-
bridge succeeded in having the middle-class exami-
nations thrown open to girls. What was the result?
Why the very men who had opposed the change
now acknowledged that the girls who came up for
examination were at least equal to the boys, and if
any thing their superiors." Mr. Moncure D. Conway
gave an interesting account of a college at Antioch,
United States, where young men and women were
educated together. " Both sexes made great pro-
ficiency in their studies, and he had the authority
of the Hon. Horace Mann, and of the pincipal of
Harvard, for stating that the morality, courtesy,
and refinement exhibited in that college were un-
equalled by any of the old universities to which
only the male sex were admitted. He knew the
college well, and he could state that there was an
almost entire absence of that monastic rudeness,
bigotry, and vice generally to be found in colleges.
In no part of the world did women enjoy so high a
position as iu the United States. In the States of
New York and Massachusetts the teaching was
almost entirely done by them, and very recently
four women had been appointed the principal
commissioners of education in the latter State."
We sympathize with the movement so far as it tends
to open to women every walk of life for which they
are qualified. Women ought to have as free
chance as men ; but we cannot sympathize with it
where it tends to militate against woman's depend-
ence which mist form the groundwork of the con-
nection between the sexes. If men cease to marry,
to rear, and to support families, there is nothing we
would like better to see than an invasion of every
profession and a strong competition by women. In
fact this must be the consequence; for it would be
grossly absurd to say that man is to abandon his
duty and still retain to himself all the loaves and
fishes. Where a man is successful in life we hold it
to
,be his first duty to take unto himself a wife and
to share with her that success. But if he declines,
the sooner women invade his preserves, and if they
have the ability assert their own right to the posi-
tion, the better. The one movement is the natural
sequence of the other, and if a majority of the girls
are compelled to remain single, circumstances must