The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times has some remarks on " Women's Rights,"
and deals with the arguments of Professor Fawcett on the
question. According to Professor Fawcett and his friends,
women are so put upon by the laws and customs of this,
and, indeed, of all countries, that they have not a fair
chance of chewing what they are really worth and what
they can do. Taking a base advantage of some slight
inferiority in physical strength, the stronger sex-- for
stronger, we presume, it is admitted to be—industriously
robs women, degrades them, incapacitates them, oppresses
and persecutes them, just as conquering races do the less
fortunate, whites the negroes, Saxons the Celts, rich men
the poor, orthodox Christians heretics and schismatics,
and so forth. Married women, they observe, have no
personal property that a brute of. a husband cannot lay
his hands upon or place at the disposal of his own credi
tors. Women cannot sit in either House of Parlia-
ment, or hold public offices in Church or in State ;
they have to votes for anything or anybody, except
in a charitable institution or a joint-stock company.
Everything is done to nullify and stultify them. They
pay rates, and just now, as the professor observes, a good
many poor women are paying rates in order that their
ma'e neighbours may be able to vote ; they may be over-
seers of the poor and waywardens, because these offices
bring work and trouble but no pay. They cannot go tc
our public schools and universities. There are no col-
leges,
fellowships, prizes, and degrees for women. They
are debarred from the ennobling and invigorating prin-
ciple of association. Men divide them and govern them ;
isolate and crush them ; shut them up and reduce them
to bondage. If the professor be right in his assump-
tion that the social and political status of women
represents nothing but oppression of the weak by the
s' rong, having the sanction of laws made by the latter,
then he may reasonably ask for the emancipation of
the weaker sister, and with some hope of success.
This assumption, however, which is the basis of his
whole argument, includes only a very small part of the
facts of the case. Men have their sphere, and women have
their sphere, though no doubt it would save philosophers a
great deal of trouble if they could be treated alike, set to
the same work, charged with the same duties, and ad-
dressed with the same arguments. Men and women
differ much more in their natural instincts, their prevailing
tastes, their objects of ambition, their fancies, imagina-
tions, hopes and fears, loves and hates, than they do in
industrial or athletic force and skill. Women are at home
in private life ; abroad in public life. Their intense feel
ings, their concentrated attention, their very strong sym-
pathies and, antipathies, the tenacity with which they
cling to particular objects of interest or affection, their
overweening prejudices, and the oneness. to which every-
thing converges around them, give them an acknow-
ledged supremacy in their own private circle. This is
their nature—that is, their highest nature—and their
happiest condition. Unfortunately, all women are not so
favoured or so constituted. There are exceptional circum-
stances and exceptional characters. For example, "the
strong-minded woman," whom Mr. Fawcett wishes to
regard as a superior specimen of the sex, is an exceptional
personage, with certain elements of character in excess of
the usual proportion. Mr. Fawcett thinks it hard that
men who cultivate and admire strength of mind them-
selves, should not like it equally in women. But it is
not the same strength of mind in both cases ; at least,
not generally ; and when a woman is so strong-minded
as to suggest a resemblance to the stronger sex, men
feel they could not love her, and accordingly do not like
her. Men certainly engross many occupations for
which women would be very competent. If, for example,
Mr. Fawcett and Mr. T. Hughes would persuade the
fashionable world to frequent only those shops for the sale
of articles of female attire where none but shopwomen are
employed, that would give a suitable occupation to many
thousand women of whom some are possibly making shirts
at a pittance which hardly keeps body and soul together.
No doubt, concludes the leading journal, our laws are man
made laws, as they are alio laws evidently made by rich
men, or men with property to defend. But so it has
always been everywhere, and always will be. There is nt
help for it, and the only help for the classes ill-used—
that is, the children, women, poor, and simple—is tha
they should acquire the special craft, the special arts,
graces, gifts. or what not, most befitting their humb!e ani
dependent condition, and most calculated to make the best

of it, under circumstances always more or less unfavourable
to very great results.

The Post asks which it shall be, peace or war in Europe.
The fallacy which underlies any argument for peace
founded on the pacific professions of Governments is
patent. Nothing can be more plausible, and nothing can
be more Uncertain. Put them together, make the most of
them, take them to be truthful and sincere, and, after all,
it will have to he owned that they are but a broken reed
to lean upon. So, too, with respect to financial embar-
rassments, it is not that States standing on the brink o'•
bankruptcy may be impelled to desperate action, but tha'
they may sink their liberty of action in alliance. Also
wbile it is obvious enough that words of peace are lieu
tralised by measures of a warlike nature, and that in the
confusion of ideas " trifles light as air" 2.3611 m:; purtentou
proportions, it would be absurd to endeavour to solve the
question "La Paix or la Guerre ? " on such contradc
thins. That question—it is just as well to say it at one.
and plainly—we n ust be content to let alone, and if the sus
pense is hard to bear, the burden, heavy and comprehensive
as it may he, will not have been borne in vain if it call
forth, instructs, and exercises the judgment on which
public opinion can be expressed with force and effect. It
is folly to recur to what is done and done with for any
other purpose. The time that is given to political trans
formations should be improved by the development of the
understanding through which they may be established
permanently, and so as to constitute a peaceful guarantee.
For the rest, two years ago it wag made matter of com-
plaint and reproach against France that she had failed to
keep the peace of Europe. We thought then, as we think

now, that France is not particularly bound to fulfil a
common public obligation ; but be that as it may,
having taken up the position assigned to her, she may
reply to this question of peace or war by pointing to at
alternative represented by her augmented army, ant
defined by the mission imposed upon her ; and if not het
proper rile, it may, and we trust will, be played so a:
to maintain the honour of the empire and the tranquillit:
of Europe.

The prospects of the Second Empire have, says the Daily
News, decidedly not brightened of late. Ugly symptom!
of gathering trouble announce a period of complexes
counsels, and a halting policy at home and abroad. A
sense of instability and insecurity weighs upon the public
mind. In all the great centres of the national life, in the
commercial and manufacturing cities, the discontent and
disaffection are almost universal. Even in the rural dis-
tricts the new conscription for the Mobile National Guard
is bitterly resented in thousands of poor cottages. One good
effect of this Army Reorganisation Bill is the horror of
professional soldiering it has created. Another good
effect of it has been to bring home to the population in the
provinces the disadvantages of a personal Government.
In the towns it has served to rally all sections of the
Liberal parties under one common badge of resistance to
military rule. Throughout the country disaffection, dis-
trust, contemptuous indifference, restless apprehension,
prevail and increase. The Second Empire has killed the
legend of the First : for VIM great benefit at least may
Liberal France b_t thankful. As public spirit revives, it
becomes more and more clear that the Second Empire
must change its skin and become a Liberal and parlia•
mentary Government, or make an end of discussion alto-
gether, and go back to the first principles of its origin and
creation—as a Government of absolute silence, secrecy,
and repression.

The Standard regrets that there is no ertainty that
the merits of the ease affecting President Johnson will
affect its result. The Senate of the United States, which
has to try the issues raised, has committed itself to the
constitutionality of the Tenure of Office Act. The Chief
Justice is a strong Republican. It is true that both
have shewn more dignity of manner and judicial decorum
than was expected ; but the Senate has decided every incl.
dental question yet raised adversely to the President
And not only so, but the idea that it might dare to be
impartial has been received with a howl of indignation by
tli Radical press, and political ruin has been threatened
to every Republican Senator who shall dare to vote an ac-
quittal. The House of Representatives—one party to tbesuit
--daily attends en masse in the Senate Chamber, as if to
overawe the cuurt. If the verdict is to be given by a party
vote, the condemnation of the President is as certain as
would be his acquittal by any b ely of men acting honestly
in a judicial spirit and on judicial principles. But a
party vote on a political trial, however it may be greeted
at the moment by party cheers, will be remembered, when
the passions of the hour have cooled, as an act of nations:
shame, which will brand with indelible infamy every mat
who took part in it, and which the Senate itself as an
Assembly will never recover.

While the Telegraph regrets that there should have been
any hitch in the preliminary proceedings for the review
at Portsmouth, it finds consolation when it regards the
facts from another point of view. The War Office and
the public must alike see that our present arrangements
indefensible, and will not work ; and that at an early
they must be overhauled, thoroughly revised, and dis-
3, for sonic system which will satisfy the nation that
as not pay money in vain. A place for our volunteers
,it be found in the central military system of the coun-
‘y, and the annual ass,nuhlies of vast bodies must be
untrusted to the control of an authority capable of
api.lying their energies to a useful purpose. Parliament
has a great deal of work on hand, but we humbly
-111,mit that, considering the aspect of the times, our milt-
toy system stands in the van of those questions which
pr,,si for a solution. An Inspector-General of Reserve
:Forces, worth his salt, ought to be capable of suggesting a
general plan, so far as his department is
.concerned ; and
we should have some guarantee that the follies of 1868 will
not he repeated in 1869. Lord Ranelagh's scheme of orga-
nisation, whatever it is, may be totally beside the mark,
and wholly unacceptable • but he has the merit of having
persistently signalised a ilaring defect, and he is certainly
entitled to boast that the Portsmouth transaction amply
warrants the application of the word " sham " to the
Volunteer army, considered in its relation to actual ser-
vice. May the warning mace

(irLy t
1)' ace
it (1:.);

THE ROYAL VISIT TO IRELAND.

The ceremonial to be observed at the installation of his
Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, on the 18th inst.,
bas been published in Dublin, from the Office of Arms,
Dublin Castle. The streets are to be lined with military
'rom the Castle down Cork-hill ancl'along Dame-street,
college-green, Grafton-street, Nassau-street, Dawson-
street, Stephen's-green, York-street, Aungier-street,
to the cathedral. No carriage of any description
will be allowed in the streets after half-past two
s'clock, except those of his Excellency's household, of
the knights, esquires, and officers of the order. His
Excellency the Grand Master, his Royal Highness the
Prince of Wales, and his Royal Highness the Duke of
Cambridge, will proceed in state from the Castle to the
cathedral. The knights, esquires, and officers of the order
will assemble at the cathedral at three o'clock, where his
Excellency will be received by the dean and chapter, and
conducted to the chapter-room by a procession of the
verger, registrar, seneschal, minor canons, prebendaries,
dean's verger, dean (kettle-drums—trumpets), pursuivants,
his excellency's household, the private secretary, the
ander secretary ; esquires, three and three; herald, installed
.:nights, equerries to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales,
Lords in Waiting to his Royal Highness, Comptroller to
the Household to his Royal Highness, his Royal Highness
the Prince of Wales, the officers of the Order of St. Patrick,
she Sword of State, borne by the Earl of Mayo ; aides-de-
Amp, his Excellency the Grand Master, the Sovereign's
ssquires. When the procession has passed into the cathe-
dral, the Hereditary Great Seneschal of Ireland, the Earl
of Waterford (the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot) will
receive her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales and her
Excellency the Marchioness of Abercorn, and conduct
them up the middle aisle to the dais prepared for them.
In the chapter-room, the Grand Master having ascended
:he throne, and the installed knights taken their seats,
with their esquires standing behind them, the knight
to be installed will stand at his seat, the first at the
table, and his esquires will deposit thereon his Royal
Highness's collar, mantle, and sword, and fix his banner.
The dean will subsequently read her Majesty's direction
' that the installation be held, and inform his Excellency
that there is no other business before the chapter but
to carry out the Sovereign's commands. His Excellency
having said that this shall forthwith be done, the proces-
sion will re-form, and on entering the choir the officers of
the order and others will fall to the right and left, and
the knights proceed to their stalls, and remain standing
under their banners until the Grand Master reaches his
stall. His Excellency will then take his seat, and the
senior installed knight and the other knights, and his
Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, will take their
seats. The "Te Deum " will then be sung, and the
installation will take place. " Ulster," kneeling, will
deliver the collar of the order, on a blue velvet cushion,
to the Grand Master. By command of the Grand
Master, the two senior knights will descend from their
seats, and his Royal Highness will be girt by them with
the sword and robed with the mantle. At each
ceremony the prelate will read the admonition. His
Excellency having invested the Prince with the collar,
he will be reconducted to his stall. The senior
esquire of his Royal Highness will then unfurl his
banner, and " Ulster " (Sir Bernard Burke), with a
'lourish of trumpets, will declare his Royal Highness's
;ties, including that of " Principal Knight Companion
f the Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick." After
his proclamation, all resuming their seats, the principal
esquire will present the offering in a purse to the registrar,
and on the banner being deposited within the rails, a
grand anthem will be performed. At its conclusion
" Ulster," making three reverences to the Grand Master,
hnd waving his sceptre, the procession, marshalled as on
entering the cathedral, will return by the same route to
Castle.

The arrangements for the Prince's stay in Ireland,
announced on authority, fill up the first week of the Royal
visit, between the 15th and the 22nd instant. Arriving
on the former day, in all probability early in the
afternoon, the Prince will next day go by special train
and open carriage, to Punchestown —which some Irish-
men, in their exuberant loyalty, propose to call
" Princestown." On Friday the ball at the Mansion
House will take place ; and the installation on the 18th
will be succeeded by the installation banquet in the
Castle in the evening. On Monday, the 20th, there will
be a ball on a grand scale at' the Castle ; and on Tuesday
the Prince will open the Spring Cattle Show of the
Royal Dublin Society. Under the auspices of that society
there will also be a conversazione in the evening.
The citizens' ball at the Exhibition Palace is arranged
for Wednesday. Preparations are also being made
for a ball at the Royal Hospital, to be given by
Lord Strathnairn, but no evening has been named as yet.
The guards of honour in attendanex on the Prince and
Princess at the various festivities will be supplied by the
3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, and the band of the
Gaards is to arrive in Kingstown from London on Monday
next for this special service.

There is a pool deal of street-painting going forwartlin

Dublin in preparation for these events, and the city
already presents rather a gay appearance. The devices
appearing in front of various public buildings and large
establishments sliew that the illuminations will be exten-
sive, but it is not now considered advisable that the;
be universal.