The Sun. — London, England, 1833-01-04 00:00:00

_•~ SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS. The arrival of M. Pozzo di Borgo in London is a confirmation or violation of the Horatian maxim, " Neu Deus intersit nisi dignus yin dice nodus ;" but arrive be did on Wednesday night, :. and was seen on his way to Downing street yesterday, to pay the customary marks of attention. His visit, it is asserted, has no poli tical object in view. It is mere aassement. He wishes to look about him. London, per haps, where he has not got to make a speech to the King, is more agreeable than Paris, where lie would have been obliged to make one, either touching upon delicate subjects or vet more suspiciously avoiding them. So observant a person as this statesman really is will have to report useful facts to his Imperial Master with respect to the issue of the late elections, and the as sured state of parties consequent upon them in the new Parliament. lie will have to tell his master that he has found a country where the King and the highest nobility are as stanch and zealous Reformers as the humblest classes,—where, though the Tory spirit "still lingering haunts" the wastes of Old Sarum or Dunwich, the Tory party is annihilated for ever,—where, from one extremity of the empire to the other, notwith standing the noisy jargon of a nick-named Con servative press, there is not even a Tory who would dare.to lend a farthing or lift a hand in favour of the principles of the Holy Alliance ; that, in one word, as far as Great Britain is con cerned, liberal opinion has achieved a victory which has given the death-blow to despotism at home, and eventually abroad ! ! A very short time will enable his Excellency to arrive at this conclusion ; meantime we bid him hearty wel come to the British shores.—Times. In calling attention yesterday to the Message of the President of the United States, and alluding particularly to that part of it which described the present commercial antipathies and political exasperation existing between the southern and northern, or between the planta tion and manufacturing, sections of the Union, we expressed satisfaction at the hope which it held out that a reasonable compromise would soon be effected, calculated to allay existing dissension and to prevent a future appeal to arms. The President seems to feel the whole force of the arguments arrayed by the advocates of the southern states against the policy and justice of the existing tariff, while, as the Chief Magistrate of the Union, he cannot abet their preparations for a civil war. He is evidently an enemy of the present high protecting duties on imports, which have driven South Carolina to the verge of rebellion, but he cannot approve of that resistance which would lead to a dissolution of the greatest confederacy of free republics which the world ever saw. He knows that the object of the General Government, as described in the federal constitution, is not to grant advantages to one state at the expense of another, or to sacrifice a parti cular member of the Union for the benefit of the whole, but to protect and to defend the safety and the interests of all at the same proportional rate of charge, and with the same impartial vigi lance. The Bth section of the federal constitu tion, which defines the powers of the General Congress, allows " taxes, dutiel, imposts, and excises to be collected, to pay the debts and to provide fir the common defence and general welfare of the United States," but declares that " all duties, imposts, and excises, shall be uni• f )rm throughout the United States." Neither in this article nor in any other provision of that im portant document is there the slightest allusion to the principle of " protecting" duties, or duties not required for "the common defence or general welfare," but imposed to promote the interests of particular States or classes. The principle of levying a revenue for the defraying of expenses common to all the States, and not the imposition of prohibitive or protecting duties for the benefit of any, is written in the text and breathes in the spirit of the great - act which assembles the Fe deral Legislature at Washington. This question has been so long and so ably discussed, that no man in the United States can now he ignorant of its bearings; and is so immediately con• fleeted with the peaceable permanence of the Union, that no man can be indifferent to its importance. The commercial interests of the northern and southern States, are as distinct as those of a mother country and her colonies. The former possess a comparatively crowded population,—have established various branches of manufactures,—and nearly engross the whole shipping of the Union ; the latter are chiefly employed in cultivating their lands b‘ slave labour, and depend upon foreign markets for the disposal of their products, and for their supply of manufactured articles in return. More than two-thirds of all the exports of the United States consist in the landed produce of those southern members of the Union, or, in other words, out of about 61,000,000 dollars in value of native productions exported from North America in 1831, nearly 40,000,000 dollars consisted of cotton, tobacco, rice, and other f roduce of the southern States. In 1829 the exports of this kind from Virginia amounted to 4,788.804 dollars ; from South Carolina to 7,580,821 dollars ; from Georgia to 5,336,626 dollars ; from Alabama to 2,291,825 dollars ; and from Louisiana t 013,04.2,740 dollars, without alluding to North Carolina and some of the other plantation States. In all these c ases the p lanters, by direct and unrestricted communication with foreign markets, or by receiving the domestic manufactures of their own country at the prices for which foreigners could supply the same ar ticles without a protecting duty, would get the fullest return for their labour and capital. The duties of 20, of 25, of 35, or of even 50 per cent., imposed at different times on foreign ma. nufactured articles, therefore, fell chiefly upon them in diminishing the returns for their pro. ducts. The immense pressure of this burden may be easily conceived when it is recollected that, with the exception of the small revenue arising from the sale of the public lands, and some other insignificant items, the Treasury of the United States is supplied solely with the produce of Custom-house duties. Last year the amount of these duties exceeded 24,000,000 dollars, of which the southern states allege that they paid two thirds, and of which the Con vention of South Carolina assure their fellow citizens they contributed more than 3,000,000 dollars. The Carolinians, therefore, in their manifesto declare, with some appearance of truth, that they are gill in colonial bond age, if not to Old England at least to New England ;—tat they cannot resort to the markets which their interests point out . , for exchanging profitably their commodities,—. and that revolutionary America had less cause to fight for its independence of Great Britain than they have for their independence of the tariff: The reasonable language of the President on this subject, where he allows that the redemp tion of the national debt affords the means, and that sounder views of commerce show the ex pediency, of limiting import duties to the pro • tection of such branches of national industry as are necessary for the public defence, has been echoed by the Secretary of the Treasury in his report on the finances of the Union. " If," says the President, " upon investigation, it shall he found, as it is believed it will be, that the legislative protection granted to any particular interest is greater than is indispensably requisite for these objects, I recommend that it be gra dually diminished ; and that, as far as may be c onsistent with those objects, the whole scheme of duties he reduced to the revenue standard as soon as a just regard to the faith of the Go vernment, and to the preservation of the large capital invested in establishments of domestic industry, will permit." Mr. Maclane, in his Treasury report, is equally reasonable and explicit. He shows that the national debt, so far as it can be paid off, will be entirely dis- charged at the beginning of the present year,— that the United States will then have no former incumbrances to liquidate, and only very mo derate annual establishments to provide for, — that 15,000,000 of dollars will amply meet all the necessary expenditure for the internal go vernment and external defence of the Confede ration,—and that if the public lands still con tinue to rema:n at the disposal of the General Government, more than 6,000,000 of dollars may be remitted in taxation. The following passage in Mr. Maclane's report (which press of matter prevents us giving at length) is particu larly deserving of notice, as at once conciliatory in spirit, and just in principle : "In the decision of this question the pi e'ent crisis in the United States, pregnant with the deepest interest, must have its weight—an interest arising not so much from an apprehension of weakness in the laws, or of inability to execute them, as from a universal conviction, throughout a large portion of the Union, of the necessity of a change, and of the propriety of paying a reasonable deference to that opinion. The harmony and brotherly affection of the citizens of different parts of this great Republic, if not the preservation of the Union itself, appeal to the patriot and statesman for the exercise of their highest qualities in regu lating the burdens of the people consistently with the equal rights of all, and in rendering the laws not less free and equal than the institution sunder which they are enact ed. The occasion invokes the spirit of liberal concession and compromise which laid the foundations of our inesti mable Union ; and on such an occasion, patriotism re quires that no one interest should exact more than will be consistent with the welfare of the whole. Such an appeal comes with force to all; but, in an essential manner, may be made to those who have so long reaped the advantage of those burdens, from which their brethren throughout the Union, after having submitted to them while the pub lic obligations and the national defence and independence required it, now ask to be relieved." Whether the Congress will agree to such a modification of the tariff as will meet the views of the Executive here expressed, or whether the southern states will be satisfied with any change short of absolute freedom, cannot at present be anticipated with certainty. Both the President and the Financial Minister are prepared to lower the existing duties, but do not altogether aban don the principle of protection, while the Con vention of South Carolina insists on the aban doninent of that principle, and the imposition of equal taxes solely for the purpose of a national revenue. Here the two parties of tariffites and nullers (as they call themselves) are directly at issue, and a reduction of duties which might be grudged by one party as too liberal would be refused by the other as altogether inadequate. " Of all Governments on the face of the earth," say the Carolinians, " the Federal Government has the least shadow of a right to exercise such a power" (as that, namely, of protecting one section of the Union at the expense of another). " It was created principally and almost exclu sively for the purpose of protecting, improving, and extending that very commerce which, for the last ten years, all its powers have been most un naturally and unrighteously perverted to cripple and destroy." This violent Convention, however, softens a little towards the end of its address, and seems to hint that, by lowering import duties to the amount of the revenue required for the expenditure of the Union, and by de stroying the distinction in the tariff between protected and unprotected articles, they will lay down their weapons of rebellion, dismiss their militia, and return to their federal allegiance. The Executive has met them half way, and, not withstanding their bluster, there seems little danger of a complete rupture or civil war. It cannot fail to strike the English readers as a curi osity, that these animated manifestoes from the southern states about their commercial rights,— full of enthusiastic expressions of freedom, — glowing with patriotic appeals to a constitution which ought equally to protect the franchises of all,—and even sometimes warmed with " the live coal" from the altar of Christian piety, pro ceed from the masters of slaves, and that their very feast of liberty is served by bondsmen. Who would believe, unless he were assured by undeniable statistical accounts, that in South Carolina the representatives of about a quarter of a million of whites should hold the following language amid 315,000 of their fellow-creatures whom they call " their property," and whom they drive to the field with the cart-whip, while they complain of the despotism of the Govern ment in depriving them of a portion of their slave labour ? ! " It does not belong to freemen to count the costs and calculate the hazards of vindicating their rights and defending their liberties ; and even if we should stand alone in the worst possible emergency of this great controversy without the co-operation or encouragement of a single state of the confederacy, we will march forward with an un faltering step, until we have accomplished the object of this great enterprise."— Times. In taking pains, on several occasions, to ex plain the cause of the differences between the southern and northern sections of the American Union respecting the tariff duties, anti in justi fying the resistance of the former to those im posts, we have generally secured the acquiescence of the sensible public in our decision. Even " the enemies of free trade" (as they ridicu lously call themselves), and the supporters of the corn-•laws, have not ventured to say a word against the principles brought forward by South Carolina and Georgia against the claim of the northern States to tax their industry in order to encourage particular branches of domestic ma nufacture, or to argue in favour of the claims of the northern States to protect their peculiar manufactured products at the expense of their southern agricultural confederates. We waited with some anxiety to see what course of reasoning our Conservatives, or our anti treedom-of-trade people, or our advocates for the corn monopoly, would take on this question ; and, behold ! they are all silent, or, if they speak out, conduct themselves with their usual ignorance, fighting against their own conclusions with American premises. The truth is, that the whole question of the ad. vantages and disadvantages of free trade has been discussed with great ability, both in the Congress and by the press of Ame rica, within the last two years, as applied to two separate sets of states with different inter ests in the same confederation; but the principles which they have established apply equally to the conflicting claims of different bodies of citizens in all countries. Substitute different classes of labourers and artisans in the same community for different states, with certain predominant interests in the same confederation, and all the admitted principles on which the American tariff is about to be changed or repealed would support a similar change in our corn laws, and a gradual abolition of protecting duties in all our branches of industry. A Go vernment or Legislature presiding over more homogenous or more mixed interests than those of the great Republic which comprises the 24 States of North America would have (if it well understood its duty) as little ground to interfere,. by projecting imposts, Fr ith the regular course of industry, as the Congress of Washington will soon admit respecting the different members of the same Union. Duties for revenue, so long as it is thought advisable to raise a revenue by Custom-house regulations, are always defen sible,—duties for the prohibition of certain foreign articles, or the protection of their home made and home-grown substitutes, are always either a compensation for an imprudent outlay of capital, an indemnification for a political error or accident, or a premium upon a misap plication of industry. The French, when, by the Buonaparte system, they were cut off from the supply of sugar from the West Indies, applied themselves to beet-root plantations an immense loss. Their iron they manufactured at the same enormous disadvantage. The North Americans during the war with England prohibited the im portation of English goods : they were therefore obliged, for their internal supply of mann fac tures, to establish at a great loss cotton, woollen, andiron manufactories of their own. These were losing trades which the respective Govern ments of those countries have for some time perpetuated, but which they are now taking measures to correct. The southern states of the American Union bore the burden for some time, but have expressed their determination to bear it no longer. In America, the interest of the northern or manufacturing states has hitherto been predominant, and has imposed duties on foreign fabrics for its own protection, while in England, by the landed aristocracy in Parlia ment, the corn monopolists, or exclusionists, have imposed prohibitions on the introduction of human food. All these partial enactments will soon cease on both sides of the Atlantic, and human industry will be allowed to select its most profitable course without interruption or restriction from impolitic enactments. In the mean time a prudent Legislature will endeavour to make the change gradual, and to render it as little injurious to private investments of capital, or established habits of industry, as is consistent with the public welfare or an ultimate return to a better system.—Times. In our paper of the 27th ult. we briefly noticed the corn r encement of the session of the Legis lative Chambers of Hesse Darmstadt. The last arrivals from the continent have brought further accounts of the proceedings of the Second Chamber, which is animated by a spirit decidedly favourable to the progress of liberal opinions and useful reforms in Germany. The debates are, however, either altogether suppressed or very imperfectly given in the German Papers, and it is difficult to judge of the real state of parties from garbled and probably perverted representa tions of what passes in such an assembly. Ne vertheless, the accounts which have reached us of the results of the proceedings, so far as they have yet gone, leave no doubt that the opposi• tion to the wishes of the Government and the arbitrary designs of the German Diet is unre served and powerful. The Members who thus boldly come forward to offer resistance, not only to the views of their own petty Court, but of all the surrounding despotisms of which the Germanic League is composed, must be presumed to feel confident in the support of the great body of the nation. On the 18th ult. the address of the Second Chamber was presented by a deputation to the Grand Duke, who expressed some dissatisfaction at certain passages which it contained. One of the most prominent referred to the ordinances or proclamations which had been issued by the Government, in pursuance of the decree of the German Diet against popular meetings and newspapers. The address said—" Publications threatening our constitutional rights have given rise to painful doubts in the breasts of the great majority of your faithful Hessians." This pas sage, it seems, gave much offence to the Court party, and it was partieularly noticed in the Grand Ducal answer. After a brief preamble, his Royal Highness stated that he would not make many re marks on those p assages i n th e address " on the spirit or substance of which it would not be agreeable to dwell." Afterwards, in referring to the allusion made in the address to the decree of the German Diet, he is said to have observed—" That he knew nothing of any publication which could be regarded as menacing to Hessian constitutional rights ; and that with a little more confidence in his intentions,the doubts said to exist never would have found admission into theChamher."During the interview the Grand Duke seemed vexed and embarrassed, and ap peared glad to get rid of the deputation as speedily as possible. When the deputation re ported the Grand Duke's answer, a warm debate took place, of which we do not find any trace in the German papers, but which terminated in referring the answer to a committee, with instruc tions to draw up a reply, which it was proposed should be called an explanatory address. On the 19th, the report of this committee was brought up by the deputy Von Gagern. It is said to have been listened to with intense interest by the people in the gallery, and by the foreign Diplomatists who were present. It stated that dissatisfaction had been expressed by his Royal Highness respecting two descrip tions of passages,—first, those in which the Chamber had expressed views on political affairs different from the views entertained by the Go vernment ; 2dly, those which had been mis understood. With respect to the former, no explanation could be entered into, and it would be improper to pass them over if the latter were to be noticed. Such a silenr justification would not befit the dignity of the Chamber, which certainly would not in any way appear to retract the political views embodied in the address. The committee therefore recotn mend that no address whatever should he pre sented to the Grand Duke, but that the obser vations made on on his answer by the committee should be adopted as a resolution of the Cham ber. The report then went over the Grand Duke's answer, sentence by sentence, and jus tified or explained the address as the case re- quired. The report was taken into consideration on the 21st, and adopted unanimously. On that day the Chambers adjourned for the holy deys, to meet again on the 7th. The motion on the decrees of the German Diet and the liberty of the press will then be debated. Frankfort letters state that the Austrian Envoy has called the attention of the German Diet to the pro ceedings of the Hesse Darmstadt Represen tatives, and that the result has been a note ad dressed to the Grand Duke requiring him to dissolve the Chambers if any measures relative to the liberty of the press or other matters should be carried in opposition to the decrees of the Diet. This is given merely as a report, but it is one which so well accords with Metternich policy and the previous proceedings of the Diet, that we should not be surprised to find it soon confirmed.— Times. If we needed any proof of the depraving in fluence which the abuses of the representative system have exercised over our political rea soners, we should find it in the course of argu ment now employed against the ballot. To hear one of these objectors thundering against the mendacity and promise-breaking, practicable under secret voting, we should be tempted to imagine that the only desideratum in election matters was a strict observance of promises, however criminally made, however tyrannically extorted, and however repugnant to the real sentiments of the voter who makes the promise. The purpose, the working, and the beneficial tendency of the elective system, as regards the public, are totally put out of the question : no thing is thought of except the fairness of the race as between man and man—the necessity of forcing , voters to stick to their engagements as regards this or that individual. " Promise me," says the landlord to his tenant, " your vote for my friend, Mr. A., or else There now, you have promised : recollect, if you do not fulfil your promise, not only shall I eject you, but no honest man will ever look you in the face again !" Now, though we hold in high reverence the general duty of observing promises, we do not extend this feeling, nor does any reasonable man extend it, to all promises, without exception. And we further maintain that, in looking at the electoral system, not only is the observance of promises not the main end to be attained by it, but promises themselves are altogether out of place, and unbecoming. If villains break into a man's house, and force him, with the pistol at his head, to sign a deed or note of hand for a large sum of money, is he a knave, or void of principle, if he refuses to fulfil a contract so extorted ? Both the law and the common reason of mankind decide in the negative. Here the purpose of the engagement is perfectly innocent and permissible ; yet the means by which it is obtained are so violent and atrocious, that the most honourable man is under no obligation to fulfil it. Now suppose that not only the promise is extorted by violence, but that the deed promised to be done is an in fringement of some moral rule—a violation of the rights of third parties—a breach of trust to wards the public—how stands the obligation of fulfilment in this case ? If a landlord forces his tenant to promise that he will come and bear false witness in an approach ing law-suit—that he will defraud a neigh bour—that he will connive at the misap propriation of public money about to come into his hand—is the tenant to be held obliged to perform any of these ingiuities, because he has been terrified into promising them ? Nay, more ;is he to be held justified in performing them, even if he has promised to do so of his own free choice ? Not if he has promised them a thousand times over. Here are cases, and those too of a kind neither ima ginary nor extravagant, in which the promiser is not only not bound to perform his engagement, but in which lie is positively and peremptorily bound to violate it. He has done wrong—very wrong—by entering into a criminal engagement ; but he will do a fresh wrong, and a far greater wrong, by performing what he has engaged. It suits the purpose of the Times, and other de fenders of compulsory voting, to pour melted lead on the head of every non-performer of a promise, be the promise what it may, or ob tained how it may. Against such a sweeping condemnation we loudly protest. The observance of promises is, doubtless, a sacred duty, but it is not the whole of a man's duties ; it is only one amongst a large and manifold catalogue. It is to be performed most religiously in all cases, except those in which performance is forbidden by some conflicting duty, still more sacred and im perious. Now we undertake to show that the compulsory election promises, on the solemnity of which so much has been said, rank among the foremost of those cases of exception, in which violation of a promise is commanded by a holier duty. For what is a compulsory election promise ? It is a promise to go and tell a deliberate lie ; to tell that lie nnder most aw ful circumstances ; to tell it in a matter of over whelming importance, and in direct breach of a special trust confided to the elector by the Le gislature, which calls upon him to speak the truth. There cannot be a falsehood more glaring, more deliberate, or more extensively hurtful, than a vote given in favour of one candidate, while the conscience pronounces in fa'rour of another. When a landlord says to his tenant, "I know you are a Reformer ; but you must go and tell a lie for me at the coming election in favour of Baring and Tyrell, or else * *." Is it possible, we ask, to conceive any promise more thoroughly combining all those conditions which extinguish obligation to ob servance—obtained as it is by the most tyran nical means, and pledging the promiser to a grand moral and political crime ? It would be not jot more guilty i n p r i nc i p l e , if t h e land lord o were l to say to his tenant, " I have got a cause co ming on at Chelmsf o rd A ss i zes ; you tnust g i ve me your pledge to be there as a witness, and swear to such and such a falsehood, or else " ".” We say there is no difference in principle between suborningthe testimony of a voter at the ro ll and suborning the testimony of a witness in a Court of Justice ; indeed a voter is nothing more than a witness to character, for the candi date whom he conscientiously prefers, on one signal and solemn occasion. If landlords thought themselves warranted in suborning false testimony in a Court of Justice, by the same threats and tortures as they now suborn it at elections, all security even for private rights would be subverted, and our judicature would become a mere instrument of their disastrous dominion, just as our Legislature has been up to the present moment. Should a dependent be induced, under the influence of threats, to promise that lie will appear and give false evi dence in his landlord's judicial cause, we main tain that he ought not to fulfil it ; and we say exactly the same in the case of a compulsory promise to vote. The language of the Times ; and of those Whigs who oppose the_ballot, is just this----" Landlords have now, and always must have, the power of terrifying their tenants into a criminal promise to vote; we must take care that the voting shall be public, in order that they may have the still farther power of terrify ing the tenants into performance of those promises ; for on no account must a promise, criminal or otherwise, remain unperformed." We say, on the other hand, that it is a great and heinous crime to extort any such promise ; it is a crirrie, though far more pardonable, to submit to threats, so far as to give it ; but it is an addi tional crime to fulfil it. He who promises to commit a crime, but repents prior to the moment of consummation, isassuredly lessguilty than if he faithfully consummated his criminal engagement. Those who object to the ballot on the ground that it will enable voters who have been bullied into reluctant promises to evade their promises at the poll, entirely forget that these same voters must inevitaloly lie if they fulfilled their promises, be cause their votes would then be given contrary to their consciences. So that the ballot, take it at the worst, introduces no additional lie into the business : it merely substitutes one lie for another: the elector discharges his duty towards the State faithfully and veraciously, while he violates a criminal pledge into which an oppres sive superior had frightened him. It would be the lie harmless and venial, in place of the lie hurtful and traitorous. But we contend that even this mitigated measure of falsehood will not continue under the ballot ; because there can be no advantage in forcing a man to promise, contrary to his inclinations, when you cannot force him to performance ; and, therefore, the compulsory promise, the root of the whole mis chief and immorality, will no longer be extorted. The promise, as we before observed, ought to have no place in such a manner ; it is useless, if the tenant coincides with his landlord ; it is iniquitous, if he differswith him.—Morn. Chron. The efforts which philanthropic individuals are making by associations called " temperance societies " to eradicate the habit of drunkenness —the besetting vice of the lower orders in this country, and instances of which are but too often found among persons of a better condition —deserve the support of all who are the friends of civilization and humanity. A reform among the people themselves which would relieve them from the malignant domination of that enemy which they " put into their mouth to steal away their brains " would be a reform worthy of an age that arrogates to itself superiority of intel lect. There is no such slave in existence as he whose reason is under the ernbruted dominion of passions rendered wild and furious by intoxi cation. The mind, in such a state of artificial brutality, is capable of follies and of crimes at which the simple barbarism of nature would be astonished. By far the greater proportion of crimes of violence and blood, committed in this and in other civilized countries, is the result of that prostration of reason and the moral faculties which inordinate drinking occasions. The most recent murder of a truly demoniac character— that of Enfield-chase—how did it arise ? If the evidence given on the Coroner's inquest be cor rect ; and we have no desire to prejudge men who have yet to be tried—the crime was planned in the beer-house--the last stimulant to the perpetration of the horrid deed was a quantity of gin, under whose influence the prepared victim and his executioners reeled away, the one inca pable of flight or resistance, the others lost to every human feeling, and, not having even that ordinary power of reflection which can look be yond an act committed under circumstances which render its concealment impossible, to its inevitable consequences. There is a beastly practice in this country which cannot be too severely reprobated, and which is too often noticed in the Press in the way rather to en coura2e than to repress it-we mean the prac tice of taking an enormous quantity of drink at a sitting, or a single draught for a wager, which not unfrequently ends in the miserable death of the debauched victor, as was the case in an in stance of this sort related the other day by a country paper, where a man, having undertaken, for a wager, to swallow two quarts of ale at a draught, and a pint of neat gin afterwards, accomplished the disgusting exploit, and died a wretched spectacle the next day, leaving a widow and a large destitute family. It cannot be denied that those who entered into this brutal wager with him, and encouraged it, were as bad as the wretch who was its victim. But the horrors and depravity of Hogarth's picture of " Gin-alley" is surpassed by an incident which happened in London a few days ago, and which led to a Coroner's inquest, at a public house in Moorfields. It appears that the land lord of the house in question opened his door to let a party out, between one and two o'clock in the morning, when a man and his wife rushed in for liquor, which the landlord refused, and, putting the man out, closed the door, till the woman, who had a child about three weeks old in her arms, wrapped in a shawl, consented to leave the house ; but, while she was in the act of quitting it, a number of persons who were on the outside, ravening also for more drink, pressed so savagely against her, in their eagerness to force an entrance, that, in spite of her cries to forbear, they would not desist until they crushed the child to death ! Horrible scene of a civi lized and Christian land ! Among mere savages no such atrocity could occur. The Jury re turned a verdict of " Accidental death." It should have been ‘. Manslaughter," as the per sons that destroyed the child were committing an illegal act—an act of trespass, which made ' them responsible for the homicide.—Morn. Her. " The question of the ballot must not be blinked," observed a morning cotemporary the other day ; and assuredly it shall not be blinked by us, who are, and always have been, its stre nuous, though humble, advocates. What are the objections to it ? It is " un-English," says one, with an effrontery which we cannot but ad mire, seeing that voting by ballot is the mode of collecting the sense of all public bodies through out the country, except in the election of Members of Parliament. " It is odious," says another, but for no assignable reason that we have yet seen—" it is immoral," says a third, though what immorality can dwell in a white or black ball, it would puzzle a wiser than Solomon to discover. If the black and white be obnoxious, take yellow and green, or any other colours ; for, assuredly,im morality does not dwell in all of them, else the evil principle must be universally predominant, and the good wholly subdued. But "it will lead to deceit, and eventually to perjury," quoth our cotemporary ; but of all the sophistries that it was ever attempted to palm upon the good sense of the people of England, this is by far the most gross, the most unjustifiable, the most ab- , surd. Deceit and perjury forsooth ! Why, who but a fool would dream for a moment of soliciting a vote, or of endeavouring to obtain a pledge, from a person who bad the power of giving his vote secretly, and over whose coil' duct he could, in consequence, exercise no it': fluence ? But the ballot will not be an ev fectual protection to the voter, " against the influence of his superiors in wealth and statitl? —it will not conceal his vote," add our anti' ballot friends. But is not this proving too much ? If the ballot be no protection, will not please its friends by the adoption of wha t they deem, and are ready to pledge themselves to hold for, a final measure ? If it will not be effectual to the concealment of the votes of dee' tors, why then it is no worse than the preseet i system, which renders them known to all parties. But it is needless to reason with our anti-ballo t cotemporaries, for they h a ve no reason on theft side. They take up the hackneyed pleas of the discarded Tories, and having permitted us t° reach the vestibule of Reform, would fain pre' vent us from entering within the wail. Let us for once and all, however, suggest to them, the they are on a wrong scent—that the necessity 01 the adoption of the ballot has been proved 13f innumerable instances of tyranny—and that whether for good or for evil, it shall and mus t be adopted. The people are as much up i° arms for it, as they were for the Reform Bill, before it became the law of the land ; and let those oppose it in the ensuing Parliament who' dare !—Morning Advertiser. OLD BAILEY, JAN. 3, Michael Grady, an Irishman, aged 36, was it' dieted for a rape upon Elizabeth Green, a young girl, 15 years of age, in the parish of St. Giles-in' the-Fields, on the 29th of October last. The prosecutrix was living as a servant to the prisoner, a salesman, at Covent-garden-marker , and lived in King -street, St. Giles's. She had been about three weeks in his service. He was a mar' tied man, but his wife did not live with him. He kept another woman, and had two children. The prisoner occupied but one room at the top of the house, in which there were two beds, and they al l slept there together. The prosecutrix has an uncle named Hayley, living in Sutton-street, Soho, wh° was also a salesman in Covent-garden-market. Oe the day mentioned in the indictment the prisoner came home about four o'clock in the afternoon, and lay down about an hour.—(At the request of Mr' Phillips, the prisoner's Counsel, the witnesses an both sides were ordered out of Court.)—Prosece' trix was minding the children and mending her apron ; her mistress was at market, and had beef; out all day. The prisoner undressed himself while she was in the room, in which she and the, children remained until he awoke, w h en h e told her to put them outside the room, as they made a great noise. She refused, and said her tnie: tress would be angry, as the children might foil down stairs, but he insisted on it, and she put them out of the room. She then sat downy and continued mending her apron ; he called her to him, and asked if she was a good girl ? She an' swered " Yes." He then said " There is a place for you," and took hold her by the shoulders and forced her into the bed. (The prosecutrix here de" ' tailed the particulars of the offence, during which she stated that she cried out and struggled against the prisoner.) She afterwards went down stairs' and the prisoner called her and came half-way down after her, but she would not stop. She went t° her aunt, whom she saw in Covent-garden-market and on the next day she was examined at Boo' street, and by a surgeon. After evidence had been adduced, the prisoner put in a written defence, in which he said thol what had happened was without any reluctance on the part of the girl. A witness gave the prisoner a good character O r morality. Mr. Justice GASELEE summed up at great length' hut before his Lordship had finished, The Jury intimated that their minds were mftd° up, and acquitted the prisoner of the capital charge' The prisoner was ordered to be detained for the misdemeanour. The trial occupied the Court five hours. Samuel Beaman, aged 32, was indicted for steal• ing a small bag containing ss. from the person el John Clark, his property and monies, on the 22 4 of December last. Guilty, but strongly recommended to mercy. NEW COURT. Charles Dailey, a young man of respectable aP' pearanee and connections, was indicted for stealing a gig, value, 25/., the property of Louis Martinelli , Tne prosecutor deposed that he is a coach-maker, in Albany-street, New-road, and the prisoner r e nted a house of him, he having been recommended bf his brother, a respectable tradesman in Waterloo' road. The prisoner represented himself as a try yeller for the house of Fry and Co., in the Citl' and requested the higher of a gig for a fortnight , and witness let him have a stanhope at 16s. a week' Before the expiration of the term witness received letter from Andover, stating that a waggon had come in contact with the gig and broken it to atoll* so that it could not be sent to London. The 1)0' saner said that he was going, into the country 10 raise some money to file a bill in Chancery, relatiVn to some property to which he was entitled. Witness ascertained that he pledged the gig the same day he received it at Robinson's repository, in Little Bri' lbi n bill in ultimate Chan' rain, and th at it h a d b een purchased by a gent l em an 1 ving in Sussex. The prisoner in his defence said, that the repro' e se e r r l y ta l t v io a n s caosrtroecht,isanindtetnhdat he ingtofie a intended fraud. Vvo witnesses spoke favourably of the prisoner's character. The Jury returned a verdict of Guilty, and the prosecutor recommended the prisoner to mercy. The COURT said it would take time to consider its judgment. ihe w following were convicted of felony, viz. :-' Lennerman (imprisoned one year); Thou Harding (imprisoned six months); William Bryan , Daniel , William h o ma sMonday, J ohnJ o hnson. Mary James Walker, Jane Ricketts, Stephen Stevenson/ John Moore, Sarah Stanley, Thomas Homeyarth Dennis Redding, Eleanor Hodges, 'William H e rd/ George Gibson, William Anderson, Thomas Miller , William Ainsworth, Robert Barrow, Henry Browlif Charles Dixon, Samuel Dee, Charles Dollef Robert Carr pleaded Guilty. David Williams N O Acquitted. TWILIGHTS OF INDIA.—We wish to di r ect the attention of r neteoro'ogists to the incre as i ng tw i l i ghts 9 1 India, which are now as distinct as in Europe, and increi in; in length. In hot climates, where the sun dips suddcz.lP twilights are thus necessarily excluded. They have been for souse time becoming more an d more di st i nct ; a proo', o f that change in climate which is now observed to pre' vail all over the world.—Scott's India Gazette. How TO PUNISH AN ALDEItNIAN.-10 Stryp's Stow, Vol. 11., p. 238, is the following ext rz le from the city records :—" NICHOLAS WYFFoap, an Al' denim, having neglected to line his cloak, which bC ought to use in the procession, therefore it is adjudged by the court that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen shall break' fast with him. This penalty is awarded on him as i ; punishment for his coveteousness." BIRTHS. On the 30th ult. in Trinity-square, Mrs. Nathaniel Clark, of son. On the Ist inst. at Torrington-square, Mrs. S. F. Yockney, of daughter, her twelfth child, all living. MARRIED. On the 3d inst. at Waltham Abbey, Essex, Edmun d Esq., fifth son of the late Rev. Richard Huntley, of Boxwel'; court, Gloucestershire, to Harriet Louisa, secon d daughter of th DIED. late William Goode, of Puckeridge, On the 3:st ult. Richard 'Campbell Bazett, Esq., of Seward' stone-lodge, in the county of Essex. On the 31st ult. in Bloomsbury-square, William Leo Cullen' Esq., of 'reneriffe, in his 34th year. 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