The Sun. — 1868-05-27 (London, England)

PROBABLY THE WORST JOURNAL IN  ENGLAND.  A great broadsheet of huge, coarsely-executed woodcuts, representing, in a style of art the badness of which has never been surpassed at any period of our uncivilisation, every kind of violent and murderous act, every foul and diabolical crime, every incident marked by special characteristics of noisomeness, horror, or cruelty, which the annals of the week preceding the publication-day of this grievous sheet have furnished for the benefit of the morbidly disposed part of the British public. Only the worst crimes are commemorated here. Has some wretched child been tormented with rare ingenuity by an unnatural parent ; has some miserable woman been assailed with more than common ferocity by her husband ; has a father been murdered by his son, or a son by his father ; has an ardent lover blown out his sweetheart's brains, or his own, or both his sweetheart's and his own ; here, as surely as the Saturday comes round, we have thrust before our eyes, certain great woodcut illustrations of such horrors, the original ghastliness of the subjects being supplemented by the additional grimness which the vilest and rudest execution can impart ..... The illustrations may be enjoyed free of expense, by those who choose to study them in the shop windows ; not so the letter-press. This the public must pay for, and, as it does pay for it, it is logical to conclude that the public likes it. Lit us examine for a moment what the public does like. It likes— else why should it pay money to get them ? detailed accounts of all sorts of ugly and terrible transactions. It likes graphic descriptions, with particulars, of human remains discovered under mysterious circumstances and in an advanced state of decomposition. It likes—judging by the titles of the different articles—to read of Brutal Assaults, of Fearful Murder and Suicide by a Father, of Attempted Wife Murder at Bury, of a Frightful Case of Suicide at the Bristol Union, of a Charge of Murder against the Servant of a Duke, of a Dreadful Assault with a Bar of Red-hot Iron. . .  Bat what this particular public seems to like best of all is a detailed history of the last hours of some well known malefactor--a kind of murderers' Court Circular. Such a history is furnished of the final scenes in the life of Miles Wetherill. The narrative is subdivided into sections, each with a heading or title of a stimulating character. Conduct of the Culprits since their Sentence of Death—Wetherhill's Interview with his Relatives and Sweetheart-Wetherhill's Last Letter to a Friend—Timothy Faherty—The Gallows and Barricades—The Crowd —The Culprits—The Pinioning--The Official Procession to the Scaffold—Last Preparation of all— Calcraft threatened. The subject indicated under these headings receives careful treatment, the details being (to employ an expressive phrase much in use among French artists) "caressed" with affection. . . . We are imitative creatures, and the influence of bad example is notoriously great in the criminal world. Any offence of an exceptional kind,and distinguished by exceptional characteristics, is sure to be followed by another and another, wonderfully like the first in all respects. The area sneak, who objects to the nature of his reception at the house where his young woman resides, and where no followers are allo wed,deterni ines in like manner, as ho broods over his wrong, "he'll do for them people as Miles Wetherill did for them Plows at Todmorden." lie adds, moreover, that "he doesn't care if he swings for it," and, to do him justice, when the time comes for swinging, it seems as if this boast were well founded, and he really does not care very much after all. Is he sustained by the thought that his picture will appear in the next number of the Police News, with the hangman attending to him on one side, and the clergyman in his surplice attending to him on the other ? Dickens's " All the Year Round."  A posthumous opera by M. Gustave Fay. " Fiesko," has been given at Pesth. Madame Ristori has been producing a greal effect in Havana.  Herr Berwald, a Swedish celebrity as a composer, and the director of the Stockholm Conservatory, died the other day, aged seventy-one. A theatre now being built at Bussetto, Signor Verdi's native place, bearing the composer's name, is to be opened this autumn. Mr. Wingfield Digby, of Sherborne Castle, has allowed the Master of the Rolls to make a copy of all the historical papers of his ancestors, the Earls of Bristol. A