The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Times reminds its readers that a general election so
late in the autumn as the month of November is of very
rare occurrence. There has been sometimes a short session
before Christmas following on an election, as in the year
1852 ; but, as a rule, elections occur in the spring, con-
tingent on an adverse vote of the existing House, or
immediately on the close of the ordinary session. On the
present occasion the constituencies will be called upon to
choose their representatives about the second week
in November, and we wish to call attention to a possible
evil against which it would be as well to be forewarned.
The municipal elections, which are held this year
OD the second of November, will precede the more
important contests by a few days only ; and under the
Reform Act of 18G7 the borough franchise has been ex-
tended, so that the constituencies for parliamentary and
for municipal purposes are practically the same. We shall
thus have two contests within a few days of each other,
in which the same furces may be marshalled on either side,
under the same leaders and subject to the same influences.
It would, no doubt, be a good thing if municipal elections
were altogether unpolitical. We have seen within the
last three years the sober conventional differences of
Liberal and Conservative widen,. until there is now a
real animosity between the more zealous partisans
on either side, and political feeling even invades
the relations of private life. What chance, then, is
there of the borough householders judging the municipal
candidates by the modest merit of fitness for their posts?
At
,a moment when every imagination is heated by the
prospect of the great electoral battle, the municipal can-
didates will receive more thorough support in their charac-
ters of opponents or defenders of the Irish Church than
could be gained by any past services to their borough, or
by the most proved devotion to their interests. In short,
it is likely that the municipal election will be a sort of
rehearsal of the parliamentary election, and that in
many cases the same party machinery will be applied to
both.

The Post says the ultra form of Tractarian worship,
which bas been irreverently described as " pernicious non-
sense," appears at length ►to have reached a climax which
imperatively demands episcopal and legal interference
an adequate nature. The Rev. Mr. Purchas, who pro%,
fesses to hold a strictly private " cure " of doubtless many
fashionable souls, is the gentleman who has been selected
for the ritualistic scapegoat, and, to do him justice, he
appears to have hurried on the vicarious sacrifice with
the most unselfish devotion. Mr. Purchas at one period
had the good taste and common sense to give up his
extreme ritualistic service in deference to the expressed
wishes of his congregation ; but within the last few
months, apparently as a set-off against this temporary
abstinence from what are considered by a certain party
not only as the pieces de resistance, but also the bonnes
benches of religion, he has plunged into still greater excesses.
Few people consider seriously how damaging these petty
squabbles are to the Church, few give due heed to the glee
with which Roman Catholics and Dissenters cf every
denomination regard and read of these dissensions, so
forcibly suggestive of the house which, divided against
itself, cannot stand. It is high time, however, that
serious attention should be directed to this topic;
and if the episcopal authorities are legally dis-
qualified to maintain something like discipline in
the ranks of their ecclesiastical subordinates, Parliament
must bestir itself to remedy such a crying evil.
Ecclesiastical law is by no means an easy study, but, as
far as we understand, it will probably take the Bishop of
Chichester three years and as many thousand pounds to
" suppress" the reverend proprietor of a Brighton chapel,
even supposing that he promotes a successful suit, which
is always problematical. This would be amusing were it
not so thoroughly lamentable. Let Parliament look to it,
and that speedily : but, if anything effectual is to be done,
Conservatives must discard their leader's cry of " No
Popery," and Liberals must make up their minds to treat
the beam in their own eye, and not deal exclusively with
their brother's mote.

The Standard remarks that Mr. Gladstone a few months
ago spoke of the National Church in terms of high respect
and with a studied moderation ; in words not altogethet
inconsistent with the natural feelings of a Churchma3
compelled to sacrifice the interests of his Church to public
principle or to the exigencies of party policy. Now h,
pours forth upon her the vials of contempt and hatred,
and speaks of her with the bitterness of a mortal enema
or the rancour of an apostate. Mr. Miall himself could
hardly be more unsparing in imputation ; Mr. Brad
laugh could hardly speak with a more offensive ane.
insulting levity. His weapons are no longer those
of grave argument, but those of bitter ridicule and
angry invective ; he no longer affects the kindly
spirit of the surgeon who knows that the knife and the
cautery are the truest kindness, but openly brandishes
the dagger of the assassin. Every turn of expression that
can convey a taunt or a reproach, every perversion o',
language, every distortion of fact that can throw ridicule
upon the object of his attack, every gibe and sneer that
the most malignant enemy could employ, is lavished by
Mr. Gladstone upon the Church of which he still pro-
fesses himself a devout and attached disciple. He no
longer betrays with a kiss ; he no longer preserves the
semblance of respect or even of courtesy. He no
longer admires the meritorious character, the devo-
tion, the unselfish and unswerving labours of the Irish
clergy ; on the contrary, he taunts them with the
smallness of their flocks, accuses them as sinecurists,
denounces them as men rich with undeserved
wealth ; and the only man among them of whom be speaks
civilly is one whose sole merit in his eyes is that of treason
to the cause of his Church and opposition to the unani-
mous desire of her loyal and faithful members. In any
case Mr. Gladstone is a man much to be pitied ; for if he
retain any self-respect, any sense of good taste or dignity,
he must keenly feel the depth of the fall implied in such a
a speech as this—the moral deterioration which has lowered
the former hope of the Conservative party and champion of
the CLurch to be the accomplice of the Brights and Malls,
the it athe of the Bealeses and the Bradlaughs. Grievous
as his sins against his Church and country have been, we
can hardly wish him a severer punishment than to read in
the newspapers of yesterday what he now is, and then tc
turn to "Hansard," and see in the " Mirror of Parlia-
ment " the image of what he was in 1842, in 1853, or even
in 1859.

According to the Daily News, the criticisms which have
been published on the letters lately exchanged between
Mr. Bouverie and Mr. Mill leave no room to doubt that
that correspondence has produced an impression not at all
to the advantage of the member for Westminster. And
although it is true that a practised observer may perceive
that here and there some old grudge against Mr.
Chadwick or dislike to Mr. Mill has given
point to what purported to be dispassionate comment,
on the whole it must be allowed that Mr. Mill
has been treated impartially. In the general prin.
ciples that have been laid down on this occasion
with great unanimity by our Liberal contemporaries Ws
entirely concur ; at the same time we do not think that al,
the eleMents of a fair judgment upon this case have been
laid before the public ; at any rate, those who have only
read Mr. Bouverie's statement may like to know what is
to be said on the other side. Mr. Mill is reproached w 4
having sent down a sort of conge d'ilire to a Scottish con-
stituency ; but there is one important fact which no
reader would learn from Mr. Bouverie's' letter,
namely, that Mr. Chadwick had been requested by
a section of the constituency of Kilmarnock to
come forward in opposition to Mr. Bouverie before
Mr. Mill's letter was written. If it is presumptuous and
encroaching of Mr. Mill to express his opinion that Mr.
Chadwick is a fit person to represent Kilmarnock, those
only are entitled to blame him who have shewn their sen•
sitiveness to the dignity and independence of constituencies
by abstaining from a similar fault. And yet, unless our
memory much deceives us, we have seen Mr. Mill cell-
slued in columns where the offence imputed to him, if it
be an offence, is daily repeated. With what justice or
decency can an anonymous journalist, who morning after
morning praises one candidate and disparages another in
public, find fault with Mr. Mill for fairly stating the
qualifications of a gentleman whom he has known many
years ?

The Telegraph comments on the accident in Trafalgar
square. "Death in the pot" has become a household
word ; " death in the boiler," it seems, must take place al
a companion phrase. The explosion of the kitchen-boiler
at the United Hotel, on Monday, was apparently one of
those "accidents" for which elaborate and careful pre
paration has been made. The structure was of the
kind known as "self-feeding ;" and in theory the
arrangement looks safe enough, for, as warm watei
is withdrawn, cold water to the same extent ought
to replace it. But, in fact, the course of tbingt
is sometimes less smooth. A large quantity of
warm' weather is withdrawn ; there is some obstruction
or delay which prevents the cold water from flowing in
the boiler grows so hot that when the cold water at lasi
comes it cracks the sides by contracting the metal, 01
generates so much steam that the structure flies aeunde•
like a bombshell under the irresistible expansive force
within. It is from such causes that boilers burst almos'
every week in the iron districts and the factory towns
and most probably it was from such causes. that
.the
boiler at the United Hotel explm.led, burying e.igh,
servants in the rubbish, and partially " wrecking'
the building. It cannot be too carefully borne it
mind that any device of a mechanical nature which ie
meant to act of itself will not remain in perfect order and
security for ever. There are hundreds of "self-feeding'
boilers in London residences • and the owners must not
place implicit or perpetual 'reliance upon the homely
machinery. As for the thousands whose kitchen-boiler
are not " self-feeding," they have only the more reason tc
beware how they trifle with those natural laws that may
convert the harmless structure whence they draw water
for the evening tea into an infernal machine scatterini
around it wounds and death,

GALLANT RESCUE OF LIVES FROM FIRE.

On Tuesday morning a fire was discovered raging on the
premises of Mr. Alfred Brown, corn dealer, of Bridge-
street, Greenwich. An alarm was raised, and Mr. Brown
was seen at an upstairs window, with one of his children in
his arms. At this moment Guernsey, of the Greenwich
Brigade Station, came up with the fire-escape, and the same
having been placed against the house Guernsey ascended it,
and succeeded in bringing down three children in safety.
The screams of Mrs. Brown were then heard, and Edward
Webb, a volunteer local fireman, ascended the escape, at
the imminent risk of his own life, and succeeded, amid the
applause of. those assembled, in bringing down Mrs. Brown,
her husband escaping by the same means.