The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-10 00:00:00

LOIVDON, 71IURSDAY, DEC. 10, 1868.

It is a matter of regret and, indeed, a subject of
direct complaint (as we took occasion to remark yes-
terday), against Mr. GLADSTONE, by some of the more
eager among our contemporaries, that more offices of
State within the circle of the Cabinet Ministers should
not have been allotted by him to the Advanced Libe-
rals. It is argued by them that the old leaven
of Whiggery is too obviously there in the
new administration. For ourselves, after a
very mature consideration of the matter, we
cannot see this. We are thankful, on the contrary,
for the immense concessions in this way made to the
popular requirements by the Prime Minister. lie
has foregone so many and such enormous temptations
to conciliate the old leaders of the Whig Party, that
we cannot but conceive that he has let the country
off very easily in nominating the men he has to the
great offices of State, to actual and prominent
seats in the Cabinet, We complain not the least in
the world that, by a wise selection on his part, he has
numbered among the inner circle of his Ministerial
colleagues such Liberal chiefs as Lord CLARENDON,
Lord GRANVILLE, the Duke of ARGYLL, Lord DE
GREY, and Lord KIMBERLEY. We complain not
in the least of this, for' the simple reason
that we remember at the same time those
others we have been spared from having
placed once more over us, the weight of whose
dullness and fatuity would have been, on the
contrary, a something simply intollerable. We can
afford almost to exult in the actual nomination to the
great offices of State, bearing in mind that we might
have had to endure the burden of such obsolete Whigs
ai Lord HALIFAX, RS S.r GEORGE GREY, as Lord
STANLEY of ALDEIILEY, and of others whose equally
preposterous names it would be only wearisome to
enumerate. Thankful for the mercies which have
been thus vouchsafed to us, we are disposed to regard
with something like positive complacency the admix-
ture of Whiggery pure and simple, with Advanced
Liberalism observable iu the newly constructed
Cabinet. Our only serious cause for regret is not
the selection of the men, whether Whigs or Ad-
vanced Liberals, so much as the distribution of the
offices among them. Mr. GLADSTONE, of course,
being behind the scenes, having the responsibility

of selection entirely his own, knowing the require-
- ifentio-ithe time and the necessities of party better
than any one by whom he could possibly be advised,
has his reasons, sound and valid reasons enough from
his point of view, no doubt, for precisely the
distribution of the great offices of State, upon which
be has deliberately decided in the formation of his
Government. Nevertheless, for all that, we should have
immensely preferred a different construction of the
Cabinet, could that in any way have been accom-
plished. Mr. LOWE might then have been the new
Minister of Education instead of Chancellor of the
Exchequer. Mr. BRIGHT, Secretary of State for India,
instead of President of the Board of Trade. Mr.
CHILDERS, Chancellor of the Exchequer instead of
First Lord of the Admiralty. Lord KIMBERLEY, once
more Lord Lieutenant of Ireland instead of Lord
Privy Seal. Lord GitArrviLLE, once more Presi-
dent of the Council, instead of Secretary of State for
the Colonies. Mr. W. E. FORSTER in the Cabinet,
as Colonial Minister, instead of out of if in his pre-
sent subordinate position. Other rearrangements of
a similar kind we should have rejoiced to have seen
thus rendered in any way practicable. Conspicuous
among these, of course, the substitution of the Lord
Chief Justice of England for the Lord Justice of Ap-
peal as the new occupant of the Woolsack, and the selec-
tion of some eminent Liberal Chief having a seat in
the Rouse of Commons, as the new Secretary of State
for the Home Department, instead of nominating to
that office a new man, who has the additional and
ludicrous disadvantage of not, being a Member
of Parliament ! Blots there are of this
kind in the distribution of offices among
Mr. GLADSTONE'S colleagues, and blots those two
last mentioned are, especially, blots that we cannot pos-
sibly cease from very earnestly regretting—namely, the
choice of Mr. AUSTIN BRUCE, who is not an M.P.,
as the Home Secretary, and the choice of Sir
W. PAGE WOOD, or, as he is now to be Lord
HATHERLEY, as the Lord High Chancellor. But,
otherwise, with those exceptions—coupled with the
regret, already rather implied than actually ex-
pressed, that, by the nomination of Lord KIMBERLEY
anew to the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, room might
have been found in Cabinet for Mr. W. E. FORSTER
as Colonial Secretary, Lord GRANVILLE resuming his
old post as President of the Council, and Lord DE
GREY having in that case allotted to him, let us say, the
Privy Seal—we do not conceive that the newly in-
stalled Prime Minister has evidenced in the selection
of his colleagues any undue predilection for the Whigs,
or anything at all like indifference to the claims for
office of the representatives of Advanced Liberalism.
The Earl of CLARENDO.N, the Earl GRANVILLE, and
the Duke of ARGYLL, are judiciously in the Cabinet.
While as for the leading champions of advanced Libe-
ralism—at the head of whom is the First Lord of the
Treasury himself —are there not, in illustration of
Mr. GLADSTONE'S loyalty to the interests of that im-
portant section of the great Liberal party, are there
nor, as proof positive of that loyalty of his to Ad-
vanced Liberalism, " towers of strength" in the names
of Mr. BRIGHT and Mr. CHILDERS, to say nothing
of so eminent a Peelite as Mr. CARDWELL, so clear
headed an expositor of the modern school of
financiers as Mr. GOSCHEN, or a new man so
thoroughly intellectual and so variously gifted as
the now Chancellor of the Exchequer ? Everything
considered, indeed, there is reason for satisfaction,
as we conceive, rather than for complaint with
reference to the selection of his colleagues by Mr.
GIADSTONE in the formation of his partly Whig,
partly Advanced Liberal Administration.

TIIE old rule caveat enzptor does not apply when
the buyer is under age. The helpless innocent of
twenty years, being totally inexperienced in the ways
of the world, being ignorant of the value of money,
is so compassionated by the law that he is far better
cared for than the full-grown, matured, and discreet
man of twenty-one. The law says that the
"infant" may buy jewellery ad libitum, cigars
ad nauseam, brandy ad inebrietatem, and yet
he need not pay. It is for the seller to
beware, and if he is wise lie will demand cash
clown or decline the honour of his juvenile visitor's
custom. Here, for instance, is a Mr. WALKER, who
in 1804 was introduced to some jewellers as a young
man of fortune, possessed of not less than £B,OOO a
year, and. who might safely be trusted with a consider-
able amount of jewellery. He was a liberal infant, and
ordered £4OO worth of trinkets at once. They were
sent to his lodgings, but the jewellers became uneasy,
and had most of the things back again. However, the
ingenuus Auer seems to have allayed the jewellers'
suspicions, and his infantine grace and simplicity so
won upon them that they and other brethren of the
same craft allowed him to have goods to the value of
nearly £15,000. Considering that cigars do not cost as
much as brilliants, the tobacconists must have been as
liberal and confiding as the jewellers, for they trusted
the weed-loving infant with £4OO worth of tobacco,
to the great damage of the infant's digestion and of their
own pockets. The infant fell in love, and married
another infant, who had to be supplied with brace-
lets, tiaras, and brooches. The French say un et un
font deux ; un et une font trois, and in due time a
third infant was born, who demanded corals and
mugs. By this time the jewellers began to think it
time that the elder of the three infants should be
called upon to pay. So they sued the papa infant,
who retained Mr. HAwKINs (funny counsel), who
declared that the gross ages of the three babies was
only 35 years and 9 months, or an average
of less than twelve years. As for the biggest of the
babies, his riches had been greatly exaggerated.
Instead of £B,OOO a year he had but £1,000; and he
had been exceedingly unlucky on the turf ; had been
quite a little marquis, in fact, for he had lost over
£.l9,ooo—nineteen years' income—almost by the
time that he was nineteen years old. Under these
circumstances was it not hard to come down upon
the poor babe? He had been surrounded by
rogues ; instead of robins, harpies had at-
tended him. These jewels and trinkets and
cigars were not necessaries, and therefore the
jewellers and the tobacconists ought not to have
supplied them. Funny Mr. HawKiNs did not say if
his client ought to retain them. Nor was that a
matter with which the jury thought they had any
concern. It was enough for them that the defendant
was an "infant," and they found a verdict for him.
Moral—jewellers and tobacconists should not allow
an infant to run up a long bill, even though he should
be a papa.

PRESID ENT JOHNSON'S last Message to Congress
contains some highly important, as well as some
doubtful and perplexing, statements of policy. It
is satisfactory to learn from an opponent of
Reconstruction and of the Republican policy
in general, that the country is rapidly recover-
ing from the effects of the civil war. Mr.
JOHNSON does not make any declaration to this
effect, but the tenour of his Message clearly skews
that such is the fact. The election of General GRANT
has been already followed by a marked improve-
ment in the social condition of the South,
and the PnEsrDENT's recommendations demonstrate
quite clearly that trade and finance in the
North are reviving, after the terrible collapse of the
late struggle. Mr. JOHNSON advocates the early
resumption of specie payments and the contraction of
the currency. The report of the Secretary to the
Treasury supplements this advice by recom-
mending that greenbacks cease to be legal tender
for private debts contracted after the close
of the following year, and that they cease
to be legal tender for all debts and contracts, except
dues to Government, after January 1, 1871. There
can be no doubt of the signification of these state-
ments. They prove that the causes which have
so long compelled the issue of a paper currency,