The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-30 00:00:00

sitn:EuT OF THE P*OI3LIO*jOURNALS,

The Saturday Review predicts thatlMr. Johnson's ac-
quittal will cause a division of the Republican party, if
the moderate minority is strong enough to stand by itself.
Only two years ago the supporters of Mr. Johnson and of
Mr. Lincoln's policy were compelled, by the pressure of
the R adical majority, to retract their overtures to the
South ; but it is not impossible that a more vigorous
resistance will be offered to a party which bas now suffered
signal discomfiture. All educated Americans are disgusted
with the supremacy of vulgar agitators, and it is said that

one reason for the acquittal of the President was thean-

tipathy of the Senate to the unpolished demagogue who
would have succeeded to the vacant office. There is as

ratch honesty and sound sense in the United States:as in
any 'other community, and certainly there is at least asmuch
ability ; but even the soundest political reasorers hi the
country fail to understand the necessary connection be-
tween the existing electoral system and the moral and
intellectual qualifications of the Stevenses, the Butlers,
and the Robinsors of Congress. If, as is highly probable,
Mr. Johnson has learned nothing by experience, he will
• •

repair the defeat inflicted on his opponentsby committing
some act of imprudence. As soon as Congress had

rejected impeachment in December last, be engaged
in a useless contest with Mr. Stantan, and it is not impro-

bable that the acquittal will encourage him to renew
the attempt. His enemies will not fail to profit by his
rashness, and perhaps they may even impeach him once
more, when the Southern Senators have secured them an
undisputed majority. Yet history, even in small and per-
sonal matters, seldom reproduces itself, and Mr. Johnson
may possibly profit by his unexpected good fortune. In
the remaining nine months of his tenure of office he may
still prove that the Senate was, politically as well as
judicially, in the right. If his troubled presidency
ends calmly, there will be a general consent of opinion
that the failure of the prosecution was conducive to the
public interest. On the other hand, fresh collisions with
Congress, although they would not really disprove the
justice of the acquittal, would be regarded as arguments
against the expediency of the decision. One cause of
irritation on both sides has been removed, since Mr.
Stanton has been induced by the verdict of the Senate to
resign. It is even possible that the President may be so
far conciliated by the withdrawal of his chief antagonist

<as to present for the approval of the Senate a successor
rho would be considered unobjectionable. Whatever
may be the course of the President, the failure of the
impeachment can scarcely fail to be beneficial as a prece-
dent. The constitutional remedy will be applicable if a
President should at any time be guilty of serious malversa-
tion of office, but impeachment will scarcely be used again
as an instrument of political hostility.
The Spectator is angry with the Republicans of the
United States for not deposing the President without
trial. We hold, it says, that the recent crisis was one in
rhich extra-constitutional measures were needful for the
public safety; that the history of the war shews that such
extra-constitutional measures have not been objected to
on sufficient occasion ; and that only the blind legalism of
men like our correspondent " A Yankee " prevents them
from seeing that. But the end is not yet. To the weak-
;less and violence—we fear, in some degree, the unworthi-
ness and corruptness—of the party which has most
bitterly opposed the President, it seems to us to be due
that the greatness and dignity of their cause have been
but partially visible to the American people, and, there-
fore, that that cause has failed.

The London Review, after quoting from the descriptions
given in the daily papers of the scene at the Old Bailey at
the execution of Barrett, says : It would be quite
impossible to feel otherwise than thankful that
we have seen the last. of these scenes, and that
we shall henceforth be without that note of civilisa-
tion, a public execution. Its suppression will materially
help us in redeeming the scum of society from the bar-
barity in which they live. One of the great questions
with which a Reformed Parliament will have to deal will
be to revolutionise the condition of theidower classes, and
to remove from society the too just reproach that to a
considerable portion of the population in large towns vice
and crime are almost necessities. The doing away with
the demoralising spectacle which Newgate witnessed on
Tuesday last will be a considerable step towards the reali-
sation of this work. Public hanging has been a grand
mistake, an unmitigated evil. It has been a school in
which the young have learnt to get rid of their humanising
sensibilities, and the old to reach a lower depth of depra-
vity. But, with that adhesiveness to habit which we
call the conservatism of English character, but which
much more deserves to he called its stupidity, we have
clung to it as if it had some grand redeeming point
beside which its debasing tendencies sank into insigni-
ficance. We maintained, forsooth, that it exercised a
deterrent influence upon those who witnessed it ; and we
held to this argument in spite of innumerable narratives,
which placed it beyond any doubt whatever that of
all the Satanic orgies which have disgraced our cities,
none has come up to that of a public hanging. Then
there was another reason why we felt we must hang our
criminals in public. It was said that, otherwise, no one
would believe that they had been hanged, and that this
might create a suspicion that the friends of a wealthy
criminal would be able to buy him off. Of course, where
you have to deal with an insane credulity nothing can
satify it. There were persons who doubted the death of
John Sadleir, though his body was found on Hampstead-
heath, and was indentified before the coroner. An inge-
nious writer might find reasons to create a doubt in some
minds as to whether it was really Muller who was hanged
for the murder of Mr. Briggs, and whether the telegram
of the King of Prussia asking her Majesty to spare his
life had not been successful. But we cannot legislate for
the credulous, and we have at last, happily, opened our
eyes to (what we might have seen long ago), the supreme
folly of expecting any good result to flow from the example
of a public execution. And now we are all satisfied that
there shall be no more of these exhibitions. We have
seen the last of them, and a great obstluction.to the civili-
sation of the lower orders has been removed.

The Imperial Review presumes that everybody is glad to
have got through the Scotch Reform Bill. The electoral
arrangements of North Britain have hitherto been so little
known, and, sooth to say, so little cared about southof the
Tweed, that the discussions of the last fortnight may be
considered to have possessed at least the merit of novelty.
But even a novelty palls upon the world when almost ex-
clusively discussed by Scotch members, and when it
is found to have an interest only for Scotch minds.
It is hard to see how any reasonable man not born
within the limits of the Northern Kingdom can
take even the most languid interest in the respective
claims of Hawick or Wigton burghs, or in disputes as to
whether the shires of Aberdeen and Ayr should or should
not be subdivided now they have acquired a plurality of
representatives. The warmth of the weather, and the
lassitude engendered by a session of continuous crises, have
not served to render the debates on the Scotch Reform Bill
additionally attractive. And the anxiety which everybody
professes and nobody feels, to expedite the advent of the
approaching dissolution has tended, if not to diminish the
ingenuity, at least to subdue the loquacity of such inde-
pendent members as have sought opportunities for the
ventilation of their various crotchets.

Are we quite prepared (asks the Srectator) to establish
or -sanction a great lottery, in which every man in the
United Kingdom can take tickets of any amount, with the
temptation of almost any possible prize, and the certainty
of losing only the sum he has resolved to venture ? Be-
cause that is what the Derby is rapidly becoming, with the
apparently hearty consent of the Legislature, the press,
and public opinion. Our contemporary, after describing
how the betting is carried on, shows that it is the lottery
system full grown, though under a different tame, the
temptation addressed to everybody through public advcr•
tisements,—they are issued in dozens in all the spurting
papers and village weeklies,—the prizes totally dispro-
portioned to the risk, the opportunity of viliturii;g money
without knowledge, on a simple guess expressed by a horse's;
name instead of a number. Open a State lottery in Londe ,n,
or any lottery in which the mass of the pe,ple can and will
invest, and the honesty .f all employ:B will be perceptiblY
diminished, the impatience of monotonous toil will visild.%
increase, and the tendency to the superstition of chance.
very dangerous and fascinating superstition, will be in•
definitely strengthened. No statesman, we 51n,6.1„,„, pies
ticins that; yet, if we do not question it, why do we, while
anpprm3ing lotteries in which the tickets are distinguished
numbers, permit lotteries itt which the tickets are die-
names ? perchance, because wi
gnilhe4l by) orsee
Wes- it more beneficial that the I nil should enriched
tkrtn that 1.:u3 thaUld rat .44 money wit! oul