The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-07 00:00:00

:SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The failure of the arrangements for the Volunteer
Review is the subject of a leader in the Times. In the
opinion of our contemporary, it is a pure absurdity to
despatch 30,000 troops, or even half that number, for a
review on a piece of ground where it has been actually
found impracticable, allowing for spectators, to manoeuvre
/5,000. The volunteers cannot, with anything like con-
Tealience to themselves or the public, do the " marching
past" on Southsea Common, even if it were worth while
to go to Southsea Common to do it. Better far to give
up this part of the business and secure as much as can be
obtained of the field-day. Marching can be practised
anywhere, and is not of supreme importance, after all,
to the efficiency of a soldier. If nothing is wanted
beyond an open space of ground, there are a hundred
places nearer and better than the strip of beach at South-
sea. But we have always looked to Easter Monday for
something more than this. It is the one field-day of the
year for the volunteer force, the single occasion on which
.they can be massed and moved in large numbers. The
opportunity is not so grand that we can afford to lose any
of it, and a miscarriage for the year would be little short
of a public misfortune. Surely there are points on the
proposed route at which the force might be mustered and
manoeuvred to better purpose, and if it should be neces-
sary to sacrifice the " marching past," the surrender can
be cheerfully borne. The affair is a most unlucky one,
for it seems to carry our chances of official mismanage-
ment into quarters hitherto unsuspected. What in the world
is to be thought of our " military organisation" if the
mere scheme of an Easter Monday review breaks down in
the middle from such miscalculation as this ? All the con-
ditions of the case were known perfectly beforehand—the
single alleged novelty being that the numbers were ex-
pected to be 30,000 instead of 23,000. But, if they had
only been 23,000, could the original programme have been
carried out ? Could even this smaller force have been
"marched past " on Southsea Common, taken on to Hilsea
lines, put through the manoeuvre of a field day, and sent
home again within the stipulated time ? We doubt if the
excuse will sustain the mistake ; but, instead of arguing
the question, it will be far better to set the whole thing
right by fresh arrangements, as may yet be done.
The Post calls attention to the most unpleasant fact
given in the latest Abyssinian correspondence, that the
calculations of the Commander-in-Chief as to reachint
Ashangi by the 16th of March had been upset by a cause
which he could not possibly have foreseen, and which he
had no right to expect—viz., the egregious blundering qf
his Quartermaster-General, who for nearly a fortnight was
engaged with the whole pioneer force in the vain en-
deavour to render an exceedingly difficult route passable
for the army, when all the time a comparatively easy
route lay unexplored, though not unknown to him,
close by. It seems scarcely credible that the leader
of the pioneer force—containing within it an abundance
of intelligent, active, enterprising officers—should
at Antalo, with three routes open for selection, adopt one
absolutely upon the advice of the natives, without at-
tempting an exploration of either of the others himself, or
sending some of his subordinates to survey or inspect them
for him. The fact of the Commander-in-Chief becoming
his own pioneer, and pushing on along the easier route,
conveys the very strongest condemnation of the action of
the Quartermaster-General in this matter. On the whole,
although the force has not made the progress expected,
nor such, we fear, as to justify the confidence expressed by
Sir Stafford Northcote in the House of Commons, still the
situation is much more satisfactory than but a short time
ago could have been expected, and we have still ample
time for the termination of the expedition during this
season if no further great delays occur.

The Daily News, in an article on the agricultural
labourer, apropos of the proposal by Canon Girdlestone
to extend the trades union system to them, expresses a
doubt whether the condition of the agricultural labourers
will be mended by it. It will be exceedingly difficult for
them to combine. The operation will certainly be resister'
by tenant farmers and landowners, for any success in this
expedient will seriously derange the calculations of the
former, and the latter will soon find out that should
labourers so combine as to permanently raise the rate of
their wages, the additional costs of cultivation, except in
Aso far as they may be compensated by the increased use of
machinery, will inevitably fall upon rent. The landowners
appear to anticipate the operation of this law, to judge from
their opposition to Mr. Fawcett's suggestion that the half-
time system should rule in case of agriculture as well az
in that of manufactures. The tenant farmers are alive
to the consequence which will ensue if the righteous cru-
sade against the gang system be successful. For its owl
part the Daily News cannot but think that the Conferenc
would have concluded more practically bad it resolved not
only to support the application of the Factory Acts to the
agricultural districts, but had expressed itself strongly
against the gang system, had recognised the wisdom of
inculcating lessons of prudence and forethought on the
labourers themselves, by organising a system of instruction
which should point out to such labourers the facts of their
condition, and the remedies for it, and had devoted itself
primarily to the business of distributing labour so as to
relieve the excess of crowded regions or parishes by migra-
tion into localities where labour is in greater demand. To
some extent labourers are themselves adopting this course,
for the population of the purely agricultural counties is
slowly but steadily diminishing.

Three criminals, convicted of specially cruel and revolt-
ing homicides, have, the Herald points out, within the
last few days paid the penalty of their offences. At
Maidstone Frances Kidder suffered death at the hands of
the public executioner for the murder of her husband's
illegitimate daughter ; and at Manchester on Saturday,
the principal actors in the Todmorden and Droylsden
tragedies expiated their crimes with their lives. The occa-
sions on which justice demands the sacrifice of three per-
sons within as many days are, happily, rare ; and every
friend of his country and his kind would be glad to know
that they had ceased altogether. But the trials at the assizes
which have just ended have been fruitful in examples
which makes us look doubtfully and almost despondingly
upon some phases of nineteenth-century society. Neither
of the wretched creatures who ended their days in shame
and ignominy upon the scaffold were of such antecedents
as would have induced anyone to suppose that they were
destined for the gallows. Though humble in station, they
were above the pinch of poverty, and though, as events
have proved, they were capable of acts of extreme bru-
tality, in two instances, at least, their previous careers
bad given no inkling of their ruthless and pitiless disposi-
tion. Yet all of them had imbrued their hands in their
neighbours' blood, under circumstances shelving premedi-
tation so Strongly, and provocation so slightly, that if
capital runishment were to be retained at all, its infliction
upon tlese three persons was an inevitable necessity.

The Standard expects all kind of good things to accrue
from the telegraphs being worked by the Post Office.
Among other delicious items it looks forward to a cheap
and uniform rate of charge. At present the rate varies
according to distance, a message of twenty words costing
a shilling per 100 miles or less, ls. 6d. up to 200 miles, and
2s. for a greater distance, while the rate between Great
Britain and Ireland is as much as 4s. By the Government
scale we are promised a uniform charge of Is. for a message
of twenty words, while the universal character of the
Post Office system will place all the towns of the king-
-oom in telegraphic communication with each other.
'ith the aid of the deposit offices the whole
population of the kingdom will find it an easy matter to
get a message " wired." This facility will enormously in-
crease the use of the telegraph, and will suggest new modes
of enterprise. Every change of this kind brings about
other changes. Not only are old wants supplied, but new
ones are at once created and gratified. We predict for
the telegraphic system of this country a splendid develop-
ment, if once it attains the working order foreshadowed by
this bill. And for all this, what is the national exchequer
to pay ? Simply nothing at all. The shareholders are to
receive their quid pro quo, the officials will either be
transferred or compensated, an 1 there is no doubt that in
the hands of • the Government the system will prove a
financial success.

How can men, exclaims the Telegraph, ask Heaven for
pity when, day by day, they torture and outrage the
dumb, helpless world of lower animals which lies in their
power ? It is a " common practice of the poulterers'
trade" to pluck the feathers from fowls while they are
living ! For doing this cruel thing a wretch named
Fletcher, of Whixall, Salop, was lately brought up at
petty sessions by his clergyman, Mr. John Evans, whose
name we mention with thanks and honour. The criminal
bad got a pullet on his knee with its throat cut, but still
alive, and he was tearing off the feathers, the wretched
bird quivering with agony at every pull. Fletcher said
"it was his usual way," and fowls " would flap if you
plucked them before they were.6old." The dealer called
another—one Muirhead—who disposes of some 5,000 or
6,000 fowls a week ; and he, too, " always does them in
this way !" The defence was that it was " the custom."
The purpose of that custom is to make the birds look
plumper at market, because the lacerated skin and
agonised flesh swell under the awful torture, which is not
the case with fowls plucked after they are cold in death.
So for the sake of a poor morbid lie, we may conclude, our
poultry markets are the daily scene of such an unspeak-
able torment as should make the stomach turn at roast
chicken.

The Star calls attention tc a pamphlet by Mr. Congreve
on Ireland. The kind of thing presented may be gathered
from the fact that Mr. Congreve dates a note "22nd
Aristotle SO," a date which, we fear, would of itself con-
vey very little idea of any sort to the minds of most of our
readers as to the day when the lines were written. 22nd
Aristotle 80,
means 18th March 1863. Then, as to Mr.
Congreve's scheme for Ireland, Mr. Con,reve would not
repeal tlt, Union at once. lie would first effect a settle-
ment of the most urgent grestions. To this purpose he
thinks a parliamont, lin,;!i,th or Irish, utterly incompetent.
Mr. Conizreve and his school are not very fond of parlia-
ments. He would appoint a deputy or viceroy, armed with
all the power the Parliament can give—that is, with abso-
lute power- and aided by the advice and suggestions of a
council in large majority Irish, to settle the Church ques-
tion, the land question, and all great questions of difficulty
now remaining unresolved. This done, let Ireland gradually
grow into independence, and she would, he argues, be the
friend, the sister, the support of England. This is Mr.
Congreve's scheme. The machinery he proposes seems to
us utterly impracticable, and indeed intolerable, even if
we desired to bring about the result be desires. Frankly,
we do not. We still believe that England and Ireland can
be made happy, equal, and prosperous members of one
imperial system.