The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-03 00:00:00

PUBLIC JOURNALS,

Should any goo!Tirfsilroili the present asCuisjori in the
French Legislative Body on the Press Bill, France will in
sib .
degree,
observes the Times, be indebted to M.
Thiers. AV2 have before us the long speech by which the
lively statesman of the July Monarchy by turns thrilled
and edified, exalted and amused his colleagues on Thurs-
day, malt is wonderful to see what amount of sound
argument ho contrived to muster under a vast • mass
of commonplaCe 'and irrelevant illustration. From his
quotation of Pliny the Elder as to the physical
helplessness of man in contrast with the brute crea-
tion over which he is. by his intellect destined
to exercise sovereign sway, from the wonders
achieved by steam and electricity in everything
connected with locomotion and the transmission
of intelligence, creating a craving for information
proportionate to our means of gratifying it, M. Thiers is

led to the establishment of his truism—that man thinks :

hence thought and its utterance, speech and the press,
must be free. He examines the causes which for the last
three-quarters of a century have opposed the application
of this obvious maxim to France, and, what is more to the
purpose, he urges the reasons why the application should
no longer be delayed. Self-government, he is convinced,
has become a necessity for all nations, and it must be
&Founded on individual liberty, electoral liberty, Parlia.
ineutary liberty, and Ministerial responsibity ; in the front
of all which liberties, he, of course, places a free press.
Against this freedom he sees very serious obstacles
in tha bill, inasmuch as it does not satisfactorily
define the offences punishable by law, and refers
them to a tribunal which is under the hand
of the Government, the judgments of which are
beyond the corrective influence of public opinion. M.
Thiers thinks that in cases in which discussion is allowed
it should be unlimited. His exceptions are the great prin-
ciples of social morality, the private life and character of
individuals, and the person of the chief of the State where
there is a responsible Ministry. For what concerns the
public acts -of public men there ought to be no restriction
or hindrance whatever, and he refers to his own words
during the discussions of the law of September, 1835,
when as a Minister he allowed anyone the most unreserved
freedom, not only " to discuss the acts of the Ministers,
but also to allege any facts, true or false, against them,
to excite against them hatred, contempt, and all
other unjust feelings." M. Thiers shews himself aware of
tho necessities pressing on the Imperial Government.
" Two or three years ago," he said, addressing M. Rouher
and his colleagues, " you looked down upon us from the
height of your infallibility, but the Crimean and Italian
wars, the events in Germany, and the Mexican catastrophe
have done away with that infallibility, and those liberties
the bare mention of which called down upon us the charge
of insanity, have become a necessity for you no less than
for ourselves. Let them, then, be real, full, ungrudged
liberties, for it is only by the freest gifts that true
gratitude can he secured. It would be difficult fox
the Emperor's Government to resist the force of this
benevolent advice ; for the events enumerated by
M. Thiers have rendered personal government in France
a difficult task, and it would be vain to deny the existence
of . dissatisfaction and misgiving. The French are an
imaginative people. They must be governed by prestige,
and moral ascendancy can only be grounded on uninter-
rupted success. These are no longer the times in which
public opinion can be carried by mere self-assertion. There
may not be much change in the political situation. France
may be as prosperous at home and as much respected
abroad as she has been at any time within the last fifteen
years ; but her moral uneasiness is undeniable. Faith is
shaken. The word " impossible " has found its way back
into the French dictionary.

The Post has an article on the subject of the injunction
..ssued by Vice-Chancellor Wood restraining the Metropo-
litan Railway from declaring or paying a dividend except
out of the profits. In the opinion of our contemporary
it is the most influential movement that has been ini-
tiated, and the most important decision that has yet been
given, in railway matters. It is the first instance of a
board being pounced upon before the fact, and actually
brought to a stand-still, and forced to justify what they
propose to do, instead of only having to defend what they
had done ; and it is the first occasion on which it has been
discovered by actual experiment that a shareholder has a
stand-point from which he can exercise a real and opera-
tive control over the oligarchy which administers his pro-
perty-. hitherto, as we all know, shareholders, when
deluded, robbed, and impoverished, have been content
with doing little more than appealing to the public by ex-
hibiting -themselves in the very common but not very
satisfactory position of crying over spilled milk. Now
they have acted on the .proverb, " Prevention is better
than cure."

The decision given in the Common Pleas in the case of
Grissel v. Bristowe and another does not give perfect satis-
faction to the Daily :Yews. If upheld, our contemporary
is afraid it will deal a heavy blow to usage altogether. The
plaintiff, Mr. Grissel, was a holder of shares in Overend,
Gurney, and Co. at the time of the stoppage of that Corn.
wising to get quit of the liability (f'3s upon
each 1:39 share), sold them in the market at a heavy loss.
In accordance with the ordinary course of business, they
pa:s3Ll through the hands of a dealer or jobber, who
• practically- acts as middleman between buyer and seller.
At the time of the settling day the dealer (Mr. Bristowe,
in this case) gave the names of the transferees who had
agi•ced to purchase the shares. The transfers were
regularly executed by Mr. Grissel, but the books
being closed the transaction could not be completed.
The plaintiff being thus retained on the register of share-
holders, had to pay a heavy call, and sought his remedy
against the dealer through whom his shares were
sold. The court decided in the plaintiff's favour.
Should the decision be confirmed, the effect will simply
be to prevent all dealings in shares not fully paid up, save
by private contract, through a deed signed by each party
in addition to the usual form of transfer. It is unneces-
sary to enlarge upon the delay and expense that will be
incurred by this system. Practically, it will result in the
entire exclusion of many classes of shares from themarket.
No dealer will care to transact business in a property by
which, from no want of prudence on his part, he may be
unwittingly involved in a heavy liability. Hence, when
any purchase or sale may be effected, it will be hampered
by nearly as many diffic:dties as the transfer of real pro-
perty. Until very recently investors have often preferred
to buy shares, since in time of need they could easily be
realised in the market. The recent decision will take this
advantage away. The dealer in shares will not incur the
risks to which he is now exposed according to the Court of
Common Pleas, nor will the broker be inclined to do busi
ness without adequate security.
What, asks the Herald, is the first and cardinal propo-
sition of our extreme educational, reformers ? Compulsory
local rating where required, and locally administered.
Yesterday this was to be permissive, to-day it is to be
compulsory. Who is to decide upon the necessity? In
the first instance the local board. In the case of their
neglect, some central authority—the Home Minister, the
Minister of Education—is to bring them to task for their
inactivity. Anyhow, the school is to be founded and sup-
ported, and people on the spot must pay for it. But people
on the spot are members of the Church of England,
Roman Catholics, Independents, Wesleyans, Baptists,
everything. What, then, is to be the colour of the reli--
gious teaching ? An invisible green, is the reply of the
Radicals. There is to be no tangible religious teaching at
all. The answer is not only logical but inevitable. Either
the denominational school would soon cease to be such, in
which case it would also soon cease to receive voluntary
support; or it would require to be supplemented by
another, which would in time, as we have shown, over-
shadow and probably destroy it. Let there be no miscon-
ception. We are asked to abolish what we have got,
and substitute in its place compulsory rates and seen,
laristn.

The Standard much regrets that there should be any
dehly in the consecration of a new bishop for Natal. As a
matter of common sense there need be no difficulty what-
ever about it. It is as competent for Bishop Gray and his
suffragans to consecrate a new bishop as for the Wesleyans
to elect a president of their Conference, or for the Presby-
terians to appoint their moderator. It is a purely spiritual
act, and in no one respect trenches upon the prerogatives
of the Crown. The South African Church is as much a
:voluntary body as any dissenting community in the empire.
It acquires no status whatever from the Crown, and is
Lee from all the restrictions which such recognition would
otherwise impose upon it. It is a mere trilling with the
question to interpose the statute of George 111., which
never contemplated the state of things established by the
Privy Council judgment and recognised by the action of
the Crown consequent thereupon. It obviously relates
s,,le!y to the consecration of bishops under the license of
the Crown to sees erected by the Crown. It becomes
obsolete when applied to cases in which the Crown
tleclaros that it has no power to grant a see, and no dispo.
sit on to grant its license, or to take any action in tie
matter whatever.

._n.!i,!ro

[tg with the Lord Chief Justice and the general
t', re 'egi'fliih marvels that such a story as that
i-te. could be told in court without
ction. Tile counsel seemed to recite his
. s'c wili !e rm en tat its character,

it,

j,, t; f.;.1 the evident air of one puzzled
t riak, ~;it ..;I,y, if there was an answer, the case had not
en ; and, if there was no answer, why, for
(•:!'y tilnc..4 wore urgent reasons, the case had not been
settl.d. The tone of the court positively forced the
4lnsel to adjourn for a new attempt at compromising a
ilnftrrel of 311C11 pitiable family and individual dishonour.
..fight or wrong, regular or irregular, technical or equi-
table, c,u1,1 a lady who had for fifteen years lived faithfully
Nvith one who has fallen heir to a vast fortune, be turned
out with abrupt harshness into the world, and no explana-
tion be forthcoming:, except the difference of the French
law and the English law? If ever woman thought that
she could dare to dispense with that contract which is
demanded by religion as well as by earthly laws, let her
herl error in the romance of the Queen's Bench on
Saturday.

CHILD MURDER A 7 BADMINTON HOUSE.

_ nie-nousehold of his Grace the Duke of Beaufort, at;
Badminton House, has received a very great shock in con-
sequence of its having been
_discovered that one of the
tmder-kitchenmaids, ayatmg womannamed Mary Smeaton,
had given birth to and then cruelly murdered an illegiti-
Mate child. It would seem from the facts deposed to
before the coroner, Mr. W. Garsford, that on Saturday
morning the mother was observed by some of the other
domestics to be unusually quiet. She appeared to get alter.
nately blushed and pale, and some of the girls noticed to
her that she seemed to be unwell. She was told that she
had better take a little rest, but she showed a disinclination
to leave the back kitchen, and she was observed to take a
black-handled knife and commence doing something to
some vegetables. All of a sudden she was missed, and as
her manner had excited some apprehension, and she did
not reply to the calls made to her, a servant was sent to
look after her. As she could not be found in either of the
kitchens, the fellow-servants who sought her proceeded to
her bedroom, and there saw her standing at the foot of the
bed in a le. .ing position over a box. The fellow-servant was
horrified at seeing her hands much stained with blood, and
she at once screamed with terror. The cries brought another
of the female domestics to the spot, and that person was
satisfied that she heard a sort of stifled breathing as of
an infant. The girls demanded what had happened, but
the mother gave them no explanation. As the sound
which the second domestic had heard appeared to come
from the box over which Smeaton was leaning, the young
woman went to it and took out tho body of a newly-born
infant. It was covered with a cloth, but she felt that the
child was alive, and on taking it out elf the cloth she saw
that its throat had been cut in a very horrible manner. The
young woman fainted at the sight and fell to the ground, and,
other assistance being at hand, messengers were despatched
for the attendance of a medical man. One arrived speedily,
but before he could reach it the poor infant, whose throa
had been cut in two places, had breathed its last, having,
in fact, bled to death. The wretched mother during
these discoveries sat on the bed, and being asked
with what weapon she had destroyed her offspring,
she replied that if they looked under the bed they
would there find it. A search was accordingly made, and
the black-handled knife which had been seen in her hand
was there found, with the marks of fresh blood upon it.
The facts, as disclosed by the witnesses, left no doubt of
the guilt of the mother, and the jury returned a verdict of
" Wilful murder against Mary Smeaton." The corcner
immediate -y issued his warrant for her committal to
Gloucester to take her trial at the approaching assizes on
the capital charge.