The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

In commenting on the death of Lord Brougham, the
Post reminds us of the great work the veteran statesman
did in the matter of law reform, as advocate at the bar, as
Lord Chancellor of England, and subsequently as private
law lord. But Lord Brougham was even more distin-
guished as a statesman than as an advocate, a judge, and
a law reformer. The large share he took in the work of
the Reform Bill of 1832, and in the contest which attended
its passing into an Act, are too well known to need com-
ment. Indeed, the unwearied debater and resolute party
leader, who in the Commons had no rival but Canning,
and who when raised to the Lords found no rival at all, is
perhaps the most prominent figure which meets the eye
in the historical group to which he belongs. While Eail
Grey and Lord John Russell enjoyed all the prestige
which rank and birth and party connections could give
them, plain Henry Brougham owed his influence solely to
his great intellect, his indomitable will, and above all to
his indefatigable industry and labour. But the fierce
party leader, whose invectives seemed formed on the model
of the philippics of Demosthenes, was at the same a great
practical philanthropist, and no less earnest and untiring
in his labours for the abolition of slavery and the slave
trade than for carrying the Reform Bill. And while
labouring to emancipate the victims of " involuntary ser-
vitude " abroad, he was no less zealously working to do
away with another kind of slavery at home, namely, that
of ignorance, which debases and fetters the mind, as the
other does the body ; and his efforts in the cause of cheap
and efficient education for the people, and the diffusion of
useful knowledge among old and young alike, were un-
ceasing.

The Daily News remarks that the shadow of a great
name has vanished. Henry Brougham is no more. A
stormy career has had a placid enfling. On Thursday
night Lord Brougham passed away in his sleep, at his
favourite retreat in the South of France. Politically he
bad been dead long before the term of his natural life. It
was difficult for observers who saw the feeble and tottering '
figure, with its head of snow, creeping into the House of
Lords, and rising there, amid forbearing silence, to mutter
A few rambling observations which the most painful efforts
could scarcely make articulate, or haunting the provincial
Congresses of the Social Science Association, or fluttering
restlessly about the rooms of the Law Amendment
Society, to believe that in it they looked upon all that was
eft of Lord Brougham. Long before his death he had
come to live a more real life in the page of history and in
the memory of younger contemporaries than in his own j
person. " This is he that was Brougham," seemed to be the
involuntary and silent confession of his long decadence.
There was in it an appeal to the considerate judgment of
the age into which his protracted existence had extended
itself. The pathetic bequest of another Lord Chancellor
of England—a greater lawyer, orator, statesmen, and
philosopher than the eminent man who has just died, a
politician as wavering, and a judge with hands less clean—
" My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and
to my own countrymen after some time be passed over,"
Lord Brougham did not need to make. Long before his
death the time had passed over which was necessary to
enable men fairly and dispassionately to judge of 11; life
and character. His political career ended more than a
generation ago. The passions of partisanship, the bitter-
ness of disappointment, the generous warmth of friend.
ship, no longer trouble and obscure the calmness and clear-
ness of men's minds. The man who died last week and
long before passed into the region of historic impartiality
into which his great predece.ssorw contemopraries, and
rivals had entered before him. Ve can think and speak
of him as we speak of Fox and Pitt and Canning, of
Thurlosv, Eldon, and Lyndhurst.

The Standard declares that Lord Brougham will be
remembered not for the speeches he has made or the books
he has written, but because of the inseparable manner in
which his name is interwoven in the history of his country
for twenty eventful years. That history will record little
of him before 1811.; and little after 1835, but between those
epochs he played a part second to none in prominence and
importance. Whilst the abolition of the slave trade, the
trial of Queen Caroline, and the Reform Act of 1832 are
remembered, Brougham's name will live in the recollec-
tion of his countrymen, and it will be held, when his whole
career is impartially considered, in honour and respect.

That nobody here in England should have known of the
death of Lord Brougham until two days had passed, shews,
in the opinion of the Tdcgrapit, how this grand old north-
country nobleman had survived himself. Politically and
civilly, he was dead long ago : be has been his own monu-
ment for a score of years ; and even now, when we say to
each other, " Lord Brouharn is no more," the words im-
part no shock such as usually accompanies the announce-
merit of great men's deaths ; they seem the formal intima-
tion of an incident accomplished long ago. Practically, he
went away out of the world to die many lustre since, but
the fibre of his body, like that of the mind, was so
prodigiously tough that be has been living hale and sound
some score of years beyond the span of man's life ; like
some giant oak of the woodland which, season after
season, shoots from its wrinkled bark and decayed
branches leaves as fresh and green as when it was a
sapling. Decayed ? we do the indomitable deceased
wrong ; be shot out fresh timber as well as leaves almost
up to the end.

The Times draws attention to the debate on fortifica-
tions which arose on the Navy Estimates. It suggests
the question, Is it a fact that fortifications— elaborate for-
tifications—are useless, or likely to be useless, in
modern war? Is it a fact that we can afford pro-
bably to neglect Portsmouth or Plymouth, and either
maintain a great arsenal at Chatham or distribute
our resources over various parts of the country ? Is
Lord Palmerston's policy, in short, condemned by the fact
that guns are bigger than they used to be, and iron more
in esteem than stone? It is remarkable that the speakers
who were loudest in their disparagement of Portsmouth
Lines were still anxious for the scheme of floatirig bat-
teries. Yet that scheme was carefully weighed against
the other in 1860, and only accepted as accessory to land
forifications. There does not seem to be great force in the
argument which appeared to produce the greatest effect and
to command the widest concurrence. Sir John Pakington,
Sir John Hay, and Mr. Childers all agreed in represent-
ing our outstanding contracts as the principal obstacle in
the way of the proposed inquiries. If we are to retrace
our steps, we must first come to halt by suspending opera-
tions ; and if we suspend operations, we must be prepared
to pay heavy sums to contractors with whom our engage-
ments would thus be broken. No doubt this might be a
dead loss, as well as a somewhat humiliating confession.
But if it be really true that the scheme in hand is a mis-
take, we had better bear the loss already incurred than
proceed with an expenditure which would only be equi-
valent to further losses. The case is exactly like that just
placed on a smaller scale and before a smaller constituency
by Lord Salisbury. The shareholders of the railway com-
pany over which he presides have spent half a million on
certain works, and are bound by contracts to spend three
millions more. They may escape this obligation by con•
senting to lose their £500,000 and paying £700,000 forfeit,
It is a very unpleasant alternative, but If the question is
anyhow one of loss it is clearly better to lose a million
and a quarter than three millions and a half. The Times
does not venture so to prejudge the question before Par-
liament, or to assume as proved that the money which we
are spending upon Portsmouth Lines might as well be
poured into the sea at Spithead. We only say that, if
there is really reason for thinking we are on a wrong
course, it would be better to stop and pay the penalty
than to go on throwing good money after bad. On
the other hand, if artificial defences are still of value, it is
merely an accidental misfortune that fortifications should
cost more than formerly. Details or mistakes of construc-
tion cannot affect the principle of the scheme ; nor can
Portsmouth Lines be proved to be a blunder by any pos-
sible defects in the Gibraltar Shield. In point of fact, we
do not observe, even in these discursive controversies, any
essential objection to the general designs of 1860, except
that which proceeds from the advocates of floating in pre-
ference to fixed defences. The rest is matter of detail,
perhaps of compromise. The position of a fort is deter-
mined, in the first place, not by the nature of the soil,
but by the immediate conditions of the problem—the com-
mand and range of the guns. The combinations of iron
and granite, again, may be questionable, and yet it may
be necessary to build strong walls of some kind. Alto-
gether, the conclusion of the debate was fair and
reasonable. Everybody seemed to think that a case
had been made out for hesitation, but Sir John
Pakington was evidently justified in objecting to a
precipitate repeal of the resolutions adopted deliberately
in 1800, and prosecuted at a vast expense ever
Nothing in the terms of the motion or the
circumstances of the occasion could have prepared
the Secretary of War for a decisive conclusion on a clues.
tion of such vast importance. He pleaded, with great
reason, that he should wish to take the opinions of his
colleagues, and that the House should only proceed to its
decision after fuller notice and longer thought. In this
position the matter may be supposed to stand, for, though
Mr. O'Beirne, after declining to withdraw his motion, was
defeated on a division, it is clear enough that the question
will be reconsidered on an early day.

AN UNFORTUNATE PETITION.—The ancestry
.A dr ert ;se r says a petition was got up at Llanfyllin by the
Tory party, at the beginning-of la.t week, against Mr. Glad- ,
stone's resolutions. It was sent off by train on Tuesday
morning, to be presented to the House by Mr. C. Wynn i
that evening ; but, unfortunately, in transferring the
parcel from one train to another at Buttington station, it fell
under the wheel, and was returned to Llanfyllin in a very
unpreauktablo

THE ATTEMPTED MURDER IN NORTON
FOLGATE.

On Sunday evening Mrs. Grossmith was pronounced by
the surgeons who are in attendance upon her to be some-
what improved, but to be still in great danger. She has
so far recovered consciousness that she has been able to
give her husband an account of the manner in which she
was attacked by Arthur Mackay. From circumstances
which are within the knowledge of Mr. Grossmith and of
his young sons there is now no doubt whatever that the
attack was premeditated, and that for some days previous
to Friday last Mackay had conceived a violent antipathy
for his mistress and her children. Mr. Grossmith's state-
ment is as follows:

Mackay was the son of an old friend, and owing to that
circumstance he was taken into the service of the Gros-
smiths, although he had been for three years in the refor-
in atory at Felth am for larceny. He professed himself highly
satisfied with his place, and tried to ingratiate himself
with his employers, and he was so far successful that he
was able to borrow money from time to time of Mrs. Gros-
smith. Last week he asked his master to give him beer with
his luncheon instead of for his dinner. Mr. Grossmith
said, " You can have it for both luncheon and dinner if
you like." Mackay hypocritically said. " No, thank you ;
I will only take beer once a day." Thrown off his guard
by this proof of temperate habits, Grossmith left the keys
of the beer cellar in the door. On Thursday morning, one
of the little boys got up at five o'clock to learn his lessons,
oad detected Mackay in the act of helping himself to beer
sit of the barrel. He asked the boy not to tell, and the
►oy replied, "Not if it is the first time." Mackay protested
;hat it was the first time, and the boy promised to hold
ois tongue. The same evening Mackay told the
Soy that he had dreamt twice that he had killed him,
and after some conversation he appears to have got at
the fact that Mrs. Grossmith had been told of the affair of
the beer barrel.

On Friday morning, at half-past six o'clock, Mackay
was seen by Walter Grossmith striking the chopper into
a large piece of meat in an extraordinary way, and he
asked him what he was doing it for. Mackay said, "I am
practising to see bow to serve those that don't do as I
like." This appears to have made an undefined im-
pression of danger on the boy's mind, which was in-
creased when Mackay soon afterwards lost his temper
with him and his brother for not ,cleaning some forks to
save him trouble. He was so violent that Mr. Grossmith
called him up and reprimanded him for his ill temper.
At half-past nine o'clock, after Mr. Grossmith left to go to
market, Walter, who should have gone to school, lin-
gered at the front door, distrustful of the intentions of
Mackay. The latter, who was cleaning the shop window,
kept looking in at Mrs. Grossmith, who was in the kitchen
behind the shop. Seeing that the little boy would not go
away, he called out to Mrs. Grossmith, " See here, ma'am,
here is Walter not gone to school yet." Mrs. Grossmith
sent Walter to school, and she thus deprived herself of her
Daly protection. She was engaged making a pudding,
and she asked Mackay for a cloth. Mackay gave her one,
which he had used for wrapping round grease ; she got
t-Igry, and told him he should wash it, and it would
‘ppear she scolded him, He came into the kitchen and
,hut the door. She did not know what he intended to do,
sut was almost instantly struck down by a terrific blow
in the head from the rolling-pin, and was sent under the
sink. She got up and laid bold of his waistcoat, which
was torn in two, but he knocked her down again and
again, striking her with something which she could not
see. A large iron saucepan was found afterwards with
a piece broken out of the side of it, and it is
believed that it was with a blow from that
that he fractured her skull • and knocked part
of the hone away. She became nearly insensible.
She could feel, she said, that "he gave it to her, and
Clocked her down a hundred times," and from injuries
to her body it is believed that he jumped upon her. A
Mrs. Sandford, whose attention had been attracted by the
noise, entered the shop Mackay looked out through the
glass panels of the kathen door, and she observed that
his face was covered with blood. She went forward, and
Mackay opened the door to go out to meet her. She
then saw Mrs. Grossmith on the floor in a pool of blood,
Ind beaten out of all shape. She said to Mackay,
" You have done this." He, with great coolness, said,
"No, I did not. The master is just gone out round the
corner. I will go for him," and he talked out. Thus he
:fleeted his escape. Mrs. Sandford fainted, and was for
some hours in the hands of the doctor before she could
malt any statement to the police. Mrs. Grossmith states
that she heard Mrs. Sandford come in, and that if she had
not arrived another blow would have been fatal at once.

The police believe they have got a clue to Mackay's
whereabouts. A hawker states that he met him in the
neighbourhood of Woolwich, and spoke to him there.
Several officers were at once despatched to the locality in
question, and if be be really there his arrest is certain. In
any case, he cannot long evade justice, for it is believed
that he has no funds, and he has not gone near his rela-
tives.