The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
GLOBE.—Political causes, to which it is impos-
sible to attach any credit, have been assigned for
King Louis Philippe's change of route, so naturally
accounted for by the weather. The departure of
the King of the French from our shores has not
lacked awful elemental accompaniments ; and super-
stition has not failed to croak its usual forebodings
froth them. " The sky at this time," says a Con-
taro Eirary's correspondent on their Majesties' arrival
at lqport, " was obscured by clouds of the most
threatening nature. Even before the arrival of the
royal party in the Victualling-yard the rain had
already commenced to fall heavily, and the cir-
cumstance of a vivid flash of lightning, accom-
panied by a long roar of thunder, occurring
just before their entry, was the cause of some
curious observations among the superstitious.
Fire from heaven was left at Portsmouth ; and fire
on earth encountered at New Cross :—" His Majesty
the King of the French arrived at the station about
eleven o'clock, and to get to the platform the royal
carriage had to pass over several lengths of hose whilst
the engines were at work. The scene at that moment
was one of intense interest. The appearance of the
troops who formed the royal escort, the reflection
of the flames upon their bright helmets and
accoutrements, the roaring of the engines working,
the shouting of the firemen, and the huzzas of the
crowd in honour of the French monarch, excited a
feeling that can with difficulty be described. For
some minutes the carriage remained stationary, and
his Majesty viewed from the window the progress of
the flames, which were within a hundred feet of him,
the heat at that time being very great." We
do not know what antiquity would have augured from
these phenomena ; but, in our view, the rapid and
skilful adjustment to awkward circumstances may be
accepted; as regards the future, in the light of good
rather than of evil omen. Incidents which would
have overpowered arrangements of less civilised times,
create no confusion—though some circuitousness—in
the route of royalty ; and we trust the political storms
which have likewise beset it may prove equally
powerless to frustrate the ultimate attainment of the
great end of peace and friendship amongst all nations
—an object dependent so mainly upon France and
England.
STANDARD —lt is the cardinal sin of a certain
ostentatious order of modern philanthropists, that
they denounce or ridicule every plan for amelior-
ating the condition of their species, which does
not originate with themselves. No sooner is a
society formed for the relief of one class of
sufferers than they are sure to suggest another, in
their estimation, infinitely more necessitous. Cha-
rity must put on their spectacles, or she is
nothing worth. She must not presume to alleviate
any sort of misery but that which they have ticketed
as best entitled to public sympathy. No scheme
which does not minister to the morbid vanity of this
order of philanthropists, by the adoption of their
crotchets and the promulgation of their prejudices,
can hope for their approbation. They profess to be
sensibly alive to the miseries of the poor, but will not
entertain any plan for their relief which goes
forth to the world without their imprimatur. Nor
is this all. The public is not only called upon to
meet out its benevolence by their bushel, but must
agree with thent in their notions of the causes of
the evil to be remedied. To judge from the
speeches of the small knot of exhibitors at the
Manchester Athenaeum, who rejoice in the designa-
tion of " Young England," and the extravagant
eulogies which have been heaped upon them
in a newspaper which they have, with great pro-
priety, selected as their organ, they would seem to
have patented all the philanthrophy which can
have any possible reference to the improvement of
the condition of the labouring classes. Their last
discovery (cricket and public gardens having been,
if we remember aright their panacea at Manchester)
is the " cottage allotment system," which, from
the tone of their speeches at Bingley, one
would suppose had been patented by them,
instead of having been in successful operation
in all parts of the country for upwards of
30 years. Who that is acquainted with the labours
of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, when Bishop of
Chester, from twenty-eight to thirty years ago, re-
quires to be assured of the advantages of such a
system, when the labourer, whether in the factory or
the field, has leisure for the occupation it invites ?
Of what service, however, it will he to the opera-
tives• of Mr. Marshall and Mr. Gott of Leeds,
whose whole lives from daylight until long after
*sunset are spent in the unwholesome atmosphere of
a cloth-mill, we have yet to learn. As little can we
understand how the fact that Lord John Man-
ners took an innings at cricket with the agri-
cultural labourers at Bingley, a few days ago, is cal-
culated to benefit the poor men who were the objects
of his ostentatious condescension. That the over-
wrought factory operative after fourteen hours of in-
cessant labour requires a breath of fresh air to revive
11;s jaded energies, is a fact which cannot be disputed ;
bet whether he will be in a condition to avail him-
pelf of the parks and gardens in preparation for
him, or to cultivate the plot of ground which
his master's kindness may have allotted to him, is
much more questionable. Even more improbable is
it, that the agricultural labourer will be attracted to
s.ich pursuits, after a hard day's work, by the mere
sight of Lord John Manners, " the son of a duke,"
ith his coat off and a bat in his hands. Were either
the allotment system or cricket, however, likely to
prove as great an alleviation of the condition of the
p as Lord John Manners professes to believe,
neither he nor his brother philanthropists hive any
right to appropriate the suggestion as their own.
Lome before his Lordship and Mr. D'lsraeli, who has
lived something like half a century, were born, such
exhibitions of sympathy for the poor were of
common occurrence among the higher classes, and
we rejoice to add, that the disposition is even
now far more general than the Young England
coterie would appear to suppose. Had his Lordship
filled the bellies of the labourers of Bingley, before
he " doffed his coat to bat Jem's ball," he would,
we doubt not, have had to deal with more active
and cheerful competitors. To provide cricket for
men who are engaged in the most fatiguing
occupations during the whole day in the open
air, is, surely, a work of supererogation. A
good supper, without a lord for a competitor,
and a comfortable " settle," would be much more
germane to the matter. As for the poor operative of
the cloth or cotton factory, his cramped limbs and
exhausted frame would hardly be provoked to such an
emercise as cricket, even with the temptation of a Lord
for a batman. Such suggestions sound well enough
in oratorical displays of the kind usually supplied by
Young England, but are they practical? Certainly
not, until accompanied by much more substantial
alleviations. The novelists and poetasters of whom
this ambitious little clique is composed are not much
better political economists than they are litlerateurs,
and have as much defied the axiom of Pope (" drink
deep or taste not"), in one capacity as they have in
the other. We know not the motive which has
prompted the adoption of the generic designation they
have selected; but if a perfect ignorance and obli-
viousness of all that was accomplished before they
arose on the political horizon, be considered their qua-
lification, they are young enough in all con-
science. We respect benevolence of motive, be
the prpposed panacea ever so eccentric ; but there is
something so impudent in the attempts of these five
or six old and young gentlemen to persuade the peo-
'tile of England that they are the only scions of the
aristocracy (?) who care a straw about them—some•
thing so exquisitely absurd in what the Morning
Chronicle happily calls their " solemn dishing up of
philanthropic odds and ends," as to render any grave
contemplation of their proceedings wholly out of
place.