The Sun.
London, England, 1868-07-11 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Here is the picture drawn by the Saturday _Review
Pie femme passee of to-day :—.Dressed in the extreme of
youthful fashion, her thinning hair dyed and crimped ani
fired till it is more like red-brown tow than hair, het
flaccid cheeks ruddled, her throat whitened, her bust
displayed with unflinching generosity, as if beauty was tt
be measured by cubic inches; her lustreless eyes blackened
round the lids, to give the semblance of limpidity to tin
tarnished whites—perhaps the pupil dilated by belladonna
or perhaps a false and fatal brilliancy for the moment
given by opium or by eau de cologne, of which she has s
store in her carriage, and drinks as she passes from ball tc
ball ; no kindly drapery of lace or gauze to conceal the
breadth of her robust maturity, or to soften the dreadful
shadows of her leanness—there she stands, the wretched
creature who will nut consent to grow old, and who will
still affect to be like a fresh coquettish girl when she is
nothing but /a femme passes-1a femme passee et ridicule
into the bargain. There is not a folly for which even the.
thoughtlessness of youth is but a poor excuse ,stn which
she, in all the plenitude of her abundant expet..lee, does
not plunge. Wife and mother as she may be, she flirts
and mazes love as Sr an nonourauie issue was as open to
her as to her daughter, or as if she did not know to what
end flirting and making love lead in all ages. If we watch
the career of such a woman, we see how, by slow but very
sure degrees, she is obliged to lower the standard of her
adorers, and to take up at last with men of inferior social
position, who are content to buy her patronage by their
devotion. To the best men of her own class she can give
nothing that they value; so she barters with snobs, who go
into the transaction with their eyes open, and take the
whole affair as a matter of exchange, and quid pro quo
rigidly exacted. Or she does really dazzle some very
young and low-born man who is weak as well as
ambitious, and who thinks the ffigitive regard of
a middle-aged woman of high rank sonTething to be
proud of and boasted about. That she is as old as his own
mother—at this moment selling tapes behind a village
counter, or gathering up the eggs in a country farm—tells
nothing against the association with him ; and the woman
who began her career of flirtation with th e son of a duke
ends it with the son of a shopkeeper, having between
these two terms spanned all the several degrees of degra-
dation which lie between giving and buying. She cannot
help herself ; for it is part of the insignia of her artificial
youth to have the reputation of a love affair, or the pre-
tence of one, if even the reality is a mere delusion. When
such a woman as this is one of the matrons, and conse-
quently one of the leaders of society, what can we expect
from the girls ? What worse example could be given to the
young? When we see her with her own daughters we
feel instinctively that she is the most disastrous adviser
they could have ; and when in the company of girls or
young married women not belonging to her, we doubt
whether we ought not to warn their natural guardians
against allowing such association, for all that her standing
in society is undeniable, and not a door is shut against
her. We may have no absolutely tangible reason to give
for our distaste beyond the self-evident facts that she
paints her face and dyes her hair, dresses in a very
dlcollete style, and affects a girlish manner that is out of
harmony with her age and condition. But though we
cannot formularise reasons, we have instincts ; and some-
times instinct sees more clearly than reason. What good
in life does this kind of woman do ?

The Spectator points out how inadequate is the provision
made in the present House of Commons for the press.
The reporters of the older journals, who alone are consi-
dered legitimate occupants of the gallery, are cramped
for room, and compelled to write in the most unnatura:
of attitudes, that of worshippers in a pewed church, while
new papers positively cannot get admittance. Are the
members really so fond of the old ones that they are will
ing to vote them a close monopoly ? As for the provincia
journals, who are daily becoming more powerful, ani
whose representatives have just as much right within th'
walls of Parliament as the London reporters, there is ne
room for them ; while the weekly papers are subjected tc
a r,(pime absolutely grotesque in its folly:and injustice.
The Saturday Review, the Spectator, the Examiner, the
London Review, and half-a-dozen more, are just as much
read by polititians, and have just as much influence on
lA)litic.-i, as the daily papers ; yet their conductors ar.
debarred from listening to the debates for which they have
usually furnished half the material. They are per
mitted, as a great favour, to attend in the Reporte-
Gallery, in which they have no seats of right, once a
week, the rule being made most stringent when the do-
bates are most important and consecutive, as, for example,
the debate upon Reform. The editors of the daily
papers, many of whom are as powerful as any men on the
front benches, are, we believe, tolerated every night, but
only of favour ; and a serious complaint was made before
this very committee that their presence was a hindrance
and a nuisance to the reporters, who do not want either tc

offend them or to he bothered with their conversation.
Much of this arrangement is, of course, due to the arrogant
theory that reporters and journalists, through whom alone
the House is powerful, are mere " strangers," surp!usa,ge
people of whose existence the House cannot condescend to ht
aware ; but some of it is due to the contracted limits of a
house in which reporters' galleries seem to have been ar
afterthought. The journalists and reporters do not asl,
much, only room to perform their unpaid but inestlinabl..
services ; and if it is refused in any new house they ought, it
self-respect, to render members' lives a misery to them,
task they could perforia very easily by ignoring them is
leaders, and reporting their chatter verbatim, with all th•
repetitions, delays, interludes, interjections, hawks, ant
other marks of oratorical incapacity which they now sup
press. Mr. Barry's scheme for building a new house ovo
the Commons Court and the dining-rooms remedies mos
of these evils, but it is insufficient. The reporters ars
allowed forty-four seats, instead of thirty-eiglt ; bu
that does not rllow for the inevitable requirements of fresl
newspapers, or for tie growing wants and power of th'
provincial press. A new institution—the editor's box—is
'lowever, a decided impro/ement, and will, we hope
speedily cause the abolition of the ban under which weekl:
newspapers at present lie ; and Mr. Barry will, we doub'
not, if pressed, screw out ten more seats for the reporters
The London review says that there never was a tims
when people in general cared less for politics in tht
old loose sense of the word than they do now. Then
was even some truth in the statements which usci
to be made about a year ago, that the working classe
were being ridden for purposes of agitation, that they has
no self originated passion on the subject of votes, and tha
the question of 4b-s extension of the suffrage might hay
slept for a great many years to come, if it had not bees
-violently whipped up. Even as it was, the agitation lackes
the usual tokens of popular enthusiasm—in spite of Hyd.
Tark, Trafalgarsquare, and the Agricultural Hall. On.
reason of this is that the working, classes, and some othe
classes, too, have not the faith which they once had in th.
results of political flank movements executed under tin
guidance'of such leaders as they have a chance of return
ing to Parliament. They are penetrated with high impe•
ideas and social questions, and they feel, vaguely, but
,rcibly enough to make " politics " less interesting t.
them, that we have not yet got at the way of charging the

Legislature with the best public opinion on subjects o
national well-being. Great as is such a question as that a
the Irish Church, and imminent as it is, we may be said tc
have arrived at a political interregnum, and, indeed, at ar
interrognum which is much more than political. Thougi
it may'appear absurd, on the eve of a general election, ti
talk,of, political inactivity, the political opinion prope
which is efficient at this time is not deep, sincere opinion
consciously or even certainly affiliated to principles. Them
is, for instance, at the present day, no obvious political
idea which is held with anything like the certainty, tin
workable certainty, with which the idea of free trade ol

the idea of non-intervention was once grasped.
The Imperial Review remarks that the readiness of the
House of Lords to adopt Mr. Gladstone's Church Rate
Bill is not, perhaps, capable of being justified on any
satisfactory grounds. Besides the general objections to
settling any long-pending question immediately before the
first appeal to the new and enlarged constituencies, there
is a peculiar reason why the church rate question was
specially unfit to be finally decided at this juncture. For
the first. time, the borough constituencies were to be
identical with the body who now grant or refuse a churcL
rate. From this body, just about to enter on political
rights, the opportunity of uttering its voice on this question
is to be snatched by the representatives of a more limited
class. The representatives of the Dime'liters in the House
of Commons have, general's. speaking, been extremely react!
to Accept tfiis measure, though falling short in forth o:
what they have desired on former occasions. For this, twe
reasons may, perhaps, be given : firstly, that in reality b
is little different from an absolute surrender ; and secondly,
that these persons do not entirely
.trust the new constitu•
envies, which will be less completely under the influence of
those who form their great strength, the urban middle
classes. The Imperial Rerieze still thinks the bill a wholly
unsatisfactory one, and quite irreconcileable with the fre.
quent declarations during the debate on the Irish Church,
that no one wished to assail the Establishment in England:
:.ft seems to u 3, .by casting the repa:r3 of the chlirchos on

tart' -
rath4,, to attack the princille of a national
ChUrch. This liv.t.Y surrender, in de!'ere;wp to: the sup.
,posed v iihcs of the now Par:iamonts,:ane'..ofAie worst
evils of the long int.c.eval hetw en !ho Reform Bill and the
ilissolation. We only that the amendments of the
;House of Lords have removed some of its most ol),lection•
Al.& and most mischievous provisions.

• On Monday next 111 r. Bass will move, "That the
;evidence taken before the 13tistoI Election Committee having
been delivered, -Mr. Speaker do 'not issue his writ for the
coy of Bristol until three days' notice of a motion for the
-,Jir '
ftt 444411 P_