The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-06 00:00:00

THE SCANDINAVIAN POWERS.

The following is a portion of the Times' Paris
correspondent's letter, dated yesterday, 6 p.m. :
" I have already announced the return of Gene-
ral Canrobert to Paris. He left, as you are aware,
Stockholm on the 19th ult., and I am this moment
informed that the day after his departure an act,
convention, or protocol was signed between the
Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs on one side,
and the English and French Ministers Plenipoten-
tiary on the other, and that the articles of that
convention, or by whatever other name it be called,
are, as I stated in a former letter, most satisfactory
to the allies and advantageous to Sweden. The
Moniteur will, no doubt, say something about it
in a few days. Is it waiting for the adhesion of
Denmark ?"

(Prom the Morning Post of this day.)
General Canrobert has returned to Paris, and it
is now allowed that we were right when we stated
that he neither signed any treaty with Sweden,
nor had any mission to sign any convention, mili-
tary or otherwise, with that Power.

A contemporary who, however, gave currency to
assertions to the contrary, now publishes a state-
ment that " a convention or protocol was signed
the day after the departure of General Canrobert
from Stockholm by the Representatives of England
and France and the Swedish Minister." But this
is " a day after the fair," as far as the accuracy
of our contemporary's assertions is concerned. And
now, again, he blunders even in calling the deed
to which it is asserted signatures were attached
" an act, a convention, or a protocol," and appears
as unable to perceive the distinction between these
as between that which is and that which is not, or
between General Canrobert's having a mission to
treat and to sign, and his having a mission to lay
the bases of future arrangements.

We repeat again, thereis no present convention
with Sweden in existence.

STATE OF TRADE.

(Frout the Illanchester Guardian of yesterday.)
As the rumours about renewed negotiations for peace
have given an impulse to Consols, so have they also some-
what strengthened the previous hardening tendency of
prices, both in cotton and in our own staples. The
buyers of yarns find that they cannot generally do quite
so well for themselves to-day as they could have done
last week. The bias is against them in 16's to 24's water
twist, and still more evidently in 30's ; also in mule of
certain middle counts and very low qualities of coarse
numbers. We here refer to epinnings for exportation.
The merchants for Northern Europe are ready to give
out orders on the condition of immediate delivery. The
barrenness of the market as to stocks, and the degree in
which spinners are under contract, interfere very much
with the placing of such orders ; yet, with all this, it is
difficult to get a little more from the buyers, who defer
the execution of all but the more pressing commissions
of their correspondents. The manufacturers purchase very
cautiously, and we are very backward at paying any ad-
vance. On the whole, therefore, yarns mast be de-
scribed as slightly dearer, but the day's business is only
moderate in amount. The tendency to harden in price
is more partially observable in goods, and is still less
successful ; very great firmness, however, characterises
the whole of this department. Whatever may be the
difficulty of adding the smallest fraction to prices, the
fact that there is a demand for all the yarns and goods
produced is so palpable that, at all events, a prevalent
and apparently well-grounde I firmness exists. The
Greek houses are not doing muoh for Constantinople ;
but they are buying to a fair extent in various articles
adapted to the Alexandria trade. The Bombay accounts
state that the anxiety occasioned by the long-continued
drought in the interior had been happily relieved at
length by genial rain where it was wanted. A good
effect upon business was anticipated. At Calcutta, the
long holidays had spoiled the month for commerce.
The rate of exchange, being still very high—rather
higher than before—was answering the purpose of the
sellers of goods and yarns very well.

At a meeting of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam
Navigation Company, held yesterday, Admiral Thornton
presiding, a dividend at the rate of' 7 per cent. per an-
num, exclusive of a payment of 30s. per share from the
underwriting account, was agreed to, and the report aas
adopted. The ordinary proceedings having concluded,
the presentation of the plate voted by the proprietors to
Mr. A. Anderson and Mr. B. M. Wilcox took place.
The private advices from St. Petersburg d. not sup-
port the prevailing rumours of a tendency on the part of
Russia to submission. They are not, however, tu he r 3
larded as less probable on that account, since it is a
common deceit at St.. Petersburg with respect to politi-
cal matters to attempt to spread by these means an im-
pression directly at variance with the real state of affairs.
It is unquestionable, however, that the profits of the
overland trade keep off in a remarkable degree the die
content which would otherwise become overwhelming,
and that Prussia may actually be regarded as the so.l-.
cause of the war being prolonged. The extra sums paid
for transit enrich a very large body of persons through
a wide district 'while at the same time, the general
neral tradc
of the country is kept up to a mache moree
favonrb.ble
the rate of point than had been anticipated. Hencenc
ex-
change, it is said, is again showing firmness, money at
Moscow is in good supply
at 7 per cent., and the Go-
Nernment paper wapee any oeriouti depreciation.

HAWKER v. SEALE, BART.

TRIAL BY JURY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SIM

SlB,—lnto the general question of the extraordinary
character of that portion of our legal system, which ap-
plies to the seeking of pecuniary compensation in cases
which clearly have no connection whatever with pounds,
shillings, and pence, it is not my province to enter, nor
will I stop to descant upon the cruelty and injustice which
are often incidental to those fictions of law that are part
and parcel of the peculiar procedure alluded to. But
'.here is one anomaly that it may, perhaps, be useful to
notice ; and the case of Hawker v. Scale, Bart., tried
(n the Court of Common Pleas last Monday, and re-
ported in the papers of the next day, seems to afford a
fitting opportunity for its brief indication. In actions
)nought to recover damages for criminal conversation
the parties principally concerned in the issue of the trial
ire not represented at all. Hence it is only reason-
able to conclude that—as in the case which elicits
these observations a frightful amount of in-
justice must sometimes be done. Nor is the gravity
of this gross injustice in any degree lightened by the
consideration that its victim is woman—woman, I may
add, whose actual positive helplessness in the business
of life, and still more in the labyrinth of law, we are too
[ouch addicted to overlook. In certain crises most of
us have felt that she is a ministering angel. We appre-
ciate and understand tleat—it is a result of common ex-
perience ; but the legal inaptitude, the business helpless.
ness of woman seldom, nay never, enters our head, as it
should do in the proper breadth of its significance. A.
woman, more especially of the higher class, is in reality
a child, and nothing but a child in regard to law and
business. She knows nothing, absolutely nothing about
either. But I mention this point only incidentally. The
main purpose in view is to invite public attention to a
fact—" a great fact," and a very cruel fact, some wise
men have considered it—namely, that the persons whose
mtereste are most deeply concerned in the issue of a
trial are not represented. Mrs. Hawker, the other day,
was not represented at all. The forms of law forbade a
not only full and fair representation, but all representa-
tion whatever of her interests—her vital, dearest inte-
rests. Against that lady the doors of the Court of
Common Pleas were virtually closed. And yet she was
de facto on her trial. Surely, surely this is net am it
should be. It is, I know, law, but it is not justice.
When the issue to her was infinitely more serious than
life and death, she was put aside—gagged and bound, it
may be added, since for all practical purposes of assert-
ing her innocence, and of vindicating her character from
the foul aspersions cast upon it, the law took no more
account of her interests, or her honour, than a herd of
elephants may be supposed to take in the existence of a
grasshopper. De ntinimiB lex non curat.
Who will be hardy enough to contend that, if the much-
injured lady, who, I firmly believe, after a careful
perusal of the evidence, as reported in the papers, is as
pure and spotless as any woman in the world ; who
will be so intrepid, I ask, as to deny that, if her in-
terests had been represented as they ought to have been,
justice would have been done her ? Her wrongs would
have been redressed, and instead of standing before the
world as she now appears, to the crass and callous mul-
titude, blighted and branded, she would stand forth to
the world in her proper and only character. Were the
Mate of the law what law reformers urge that it ought
to be her fair fame would not have been thus sullied,
her feelings would not have been thus outraged, nor
would her heart have been pierced by anguish
inch as woman alone can suffer from. But jus-
tice has not been done her. She has been condemned,
unheard and unrepresented, the forma of law precluding
her from establishing her innocence. I impugn those
forms, in order that the Hon. Mr. Locke and other law
eformers may perhaps be induced to look into this de-
partment of injustice, and provide an amendment. At
any rate, in this case, which is but a sample of the
sack, we see an accomplished young lady, of great
beauty and high birth and breeding, by a curious
kind of second-hand process, indirectly convicted of
a crime for which no excuse ever is, or ever ought
to be, made. She is thus condemned, too, only on
the evidence, if not entirely, chiefly, of a lodging-
house keeper, living in a kitchen, and her ser-
cant, one Perin de Marsli4. How any jury, on the evi-
dence of these two women, could arrive at the conclu-
sion conveyed by their verdict must be, to most men,
perfectly incomprehensible. But verdicts, such as are
now an every-day scandal, will soon bring into contempt
trial by jury. Some machinery more efficient for the
administration of justice than the obsolete fiction of 12
good men and true must be devised. For verdicts are
nowadays not seldom a solemn mockery ; they are in-
deed an outrage alike on intelligence and on justice.—
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
LAW REFORMER.

THE EASTERN COUNTIES RAILWAY.