The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-20 00:00:00

MARYLEBONE.

EXTENSIVE ROBSERY OF BOOKS.— William Cross,
a man of short stature, about 50 years of age, was
charged before Mr. Broughton, on suspicion of having
stolen a large quantity of books from schools, news-
papers from coffee-shops, &e.
Edward Breekly, S X 79, said that about five o'clock
last evening be was on duty in Camden Town, when he
was called by Mr. Cattle, pawnbroker, and who stated
to him that the prisoner had offered a book for pledge
which he believed had been stolen. Witness, in conse-
quence of the prisoner not letting him know where he
got it from, took him into custody. He never said a
word all the way to the station-house. He was there
seam :led, when a Dispatch and an illustrated ?Yeas of
Sunday last, each of which were smeared with coffee,
were found in his pocket. (These were produced, as was
also the book, which was a splendid edition of" Naomi,
or the last days of Jerusalem," published by Hall and
Virtue, Paternoster-row.) Witness asked the prisoner
where he lived, when he gave the direction, No. 19,
Torriana-grove, Camden Town. Witness went there
and found the prisoner's wife, who was in care of the
house, which is to be let. He made a search and disco-
vered 50 duplicates relating to about 150 volumes, some
of which witness believed to be valuable works, which
have been pledged at various pawnbrokers. (The dupli-
cates were produced, and they showed that the prisoner
had realised a large amount of money.)
In answer to the magistrate the policeman stated that
he had not been able since the apprehension of the pri-
soner to go to the pawnbrokers, but that there were
several persons present who had been robbed of books,
and who bad seen them at the pawnbrokers'. There
were among them a gentleman living at Hampstead,
two ladies who have an educational establishment at
Islington, &c. The policeman further added that the
prisoner was in the habit of obtaining circulars from
schools, which he used to make use of by going to the
several establishments under the pretence of recommend-
ing a scholar, when he took the opportunity of stealing
as many books as he could lay hold of.
The prisoner was remanded.

THE FATAL EXPLOSION AT ST. GEORGE'S-IN-THE-
EAST.—Yesterday morning, Mr. Wm. Baker, the coro-
ner, resumed the inquiry at the London Hospital on the
bodies of the five men who were killed by the explosion
of a boiler at Messrs. Hall and Boyd s, the sugar a-
the jury returned a verdict of "Accidental
fibers, St. George's-in-the-East. After some further
evidence,
death."

LONDON MODEL LODGING-HOUSES.—The monthly re-
port of the Society for Improving the Condition of the
Labouring Classes states that the Metropolitan Lodging-
houses are in a satisfactory condition. The average
number of each is as follows :—ln the George street
house, 100, in the Hatton-garden-house, 53, weekly in-
mates. In the Charles-street, 78, and the Bing-street,
21, nightly inmates. The family houses in Streatham-
street Model-buildings and Portpool•lane are all full. In
Wild-court there are only five empty rooms out of 108.
In Portpool-la;e therearo 65 females oceupyiDg Di rooms.

Spirit of the Public Journals.

( From the Times of this day.)

In the days that preceded the first French Re-
volution, when opinion on the Continent was com-
paratively free, and German sovereigns were not
afraid of uttering liberal sentiments, and feeling,
or at least professing, a sincere interest not merely
in the taxpaying and recruiting powers, but in the
progress, welfare, and enlightenment of their sub-
jects, there lived an Emperor of Austria who ren-
dered illustrious in the annals of Europe the second
by herjo
se
pphr
ct
oynofue
rtrhefdu
nSeosvtei
mr eai gbnl
e.
of the two names borne with some what less eclat
11.
i
benefits on the
Austrian church and people by his manly and
vigorous resistance to the encroachmentt of the
Court of Rome. It was his policy to vest the go-
vernment of the church in the bishops, and the
supreme power over the bishops in himself. It
'was in vain that the Pope undertook a journey in
order to dissuade the Emperor from his policy.
The Pope was courteously received, splendidly en-
tertained, and sent back to Rome without having
been able to obtain the slightest concession. From
that time to this the Austrian Church has enjoyed,
in greater or less measure, the benefits of thenoble
stand made on her behalf by the Emperor, until,
on the sth of this present November, a document
' was solemnly promulgated as fatal to the power
and unity of government in Austria as the great
conspiracy the detection of which we celebrate on
that day would have been to the power and inde-
pendence of the temporal and spiritual govern-
ment of England. In this most strange and most
discreditable document the Emperor of Austria
seems to complete the measure of those distresses
and humiliations which will make his reign ever
memorable in the chequered annals of the house
of Hapsburg. Young as he is, the Emperor has
already been forced to confess himself vanquished
by his own insurgent subjects, to beg for the
restitution of his Crown at the feet of a neigh-
bouring and contemptuous Sovereign, to aban-
don the position of armed menace which he
had taken up, and to disband an army which be
had not resolution to use. _ These, however, were

misfortunes forced upon him by stern necessity,
humiliations in which, though there might be much

to pity, there was little to condemn. But the shame-
ful Concordat with the Pope is a voluntary act of
degradation, justified by no State necessity, en-
forced by no overpowering conjuncture of circum-
stances. It is a spontaneous act of self-spoliation
and self-abasement, a voluntary betrayal and sur-
render of the most sacred rights of the Crown, the
clergy, and the people. It assumes the dimensions
of a great political crime, and exhibits despotism in
it 3 worst form, not of caprice and tyranny, but of
deliberate and complete betrayal of the rights and

interests intrusted in an evil hour to its selfish and

faithless keeping. The Concordat consists. of 3G
articles, every one of them a deadly stab to freedom
of conscience and the independence of the Crown,
the church, and the laity of Austria. The first
article declares the maintenance of the Roman Ca-
tholic religion, with all the privileges which, by the
laws of the church, it ought to have, unlimited per-
secution of heretics being of the number. Thus
fall at a single blow that liberty of conscience and
. .

freedom of ;pinion in religious matters which have
hitherto so honourably distinguished the Austrian
Government. The second article gives to the
bishops, clergy, and laity free communication with
the Pope, without the intervention of the temporal
ruler, thus depriving the Emperor of any power or
control over the national church, and placing it in
the power of the Pope to contrive and execute the
most dangerous conspiracies against the Govern-
ment. It is impossible to carry the doctrine of im-
perium in imperio further, and tolerant Austria
has thus submitted to a yoke which would have
been scorned by bigoted Spain in the days of
Ferdinand and Isabella. The third article gives
the bishops complete authority, pastoral and legis-
lative, over their clergy ; and the fourth places
this authority under the control of the Papal chair.
The fifth article places all public and private schools
under the control of the bishops ; and the sixth
gives the bishops the power of appointing and re-
moving the only persons allowed to teach sacred
theology. The seventh article provides that none
but Catholic professors shall be allowed to teach
anything in the middle-class schools, and the books
of instruction are to be chosen by the bishops. By
the eighth article the Emperor is permitted to
choose the inspector of the schools of the diocese,
but under the degrading condition that the candi-
dates from whom he is to select shall be chosen by
the bishops. The ninth article promises the help
of the Government to suppress such books as are
dangerous to religion in the judgment of the
bishops. The tenth article establishing ecclesiasti-
cal courts for the punishment of the clergy and the
trial of cases relating to marriage and betrothal.
, The eleventh article arms the bishop with the power
of inflicting ecclesiastical punishment on clergy and
laity ; and the twelfth article surrenders to the
spiritual courts the power of deciding on the right
of patronage, except in the case of a disputed suc-
cession. We will not enumerate all the articles,
which will be found at length elsewhere, but it
must occur to any one who has read this brief ,
abstract of the most important to inquire what can
have been the motives which induced Francis
Joseph to sign this shameful capitulation, aud,
without any apparent consideration, to abdicate
his right to control the actions, the education,
and the administration of justice between his sub-
jects to a foreign Prince whose own govern-
•ment of his own dominions is notoriously one of
the most corrupt and tyrannical in the world, and
of whom he has no assurance that he may not
at any moment become the tool of a foreign hos-
tile State, and employ the vast power he acquires
over the subjects of Austria for the purpose of her
dismemberment and destruction. We believe the
motive for this Concordat to be the desire of Aus-
tria to place herself firmly at the head of the Ger-
manic Confederation, and completely to defeat and
extinguish the rivalry of Prussia. A noble oppor-
tunity offered for effecting this darling object of
her policy by joining the Western Powers, and
taking a leading part in the European war of in-
dependence. But for such a step Austria was no
more prepared than Prussia : and therefore, with
her usual preference of the more ignoble over the
more generous springs of action she has determined
to owe her victory in the struggle to the ignor-
ance and superstition, instead of to the admiration
and respect, of mankind. She might have become
the leader of Germany by vindicating her from the
attacks of a temporal aggressor ; she has preferred
to rest her claims to supremacy on the good ser-
vice which does her country by selling it into the
hands of a despicable spiritual tyranny. The path
of honour trodden by the allies is too hazardous,
and Austria deems her object may be more readily
obtained by the path of shame.
She ought to know her own game best, yet we
cannot escape the conviction that in this policy she
is overreaching herself. The Austrian church
views with the utmost alarm and terror the sur-
render of its liberties into the hands of the
Court of Rome, and the enlightened portion of
the laity regard such a proceeding with un-
disFembled disgust. It may well turn out that
by the Concordat, instead of rallying round
her a united Catholic party, Austria has only
been the means of creating schism and divisions
in the church, and that this violent ultramon-
tane aggression may be met with an equally
energetic reaction. It may also well be that the
immense powers which she has thus conceded over
her domestic affairs to a foreign Prince may be em-
ployed by him as the instrument of France or Rus-
sia, and that, in exchange for a very doubtful
immediate advantage, she may find that she has
surrendered powers of internal regulation which it
may be difficult, or even impossible to resume.
Surely it was scarcely wise to introduce into an
empire of discordant nationalities, whose only bond
of cohesion is the sword, another anarchical in-
fluence, to be exercised by a Prince, of whom it is
only certain that he will use it without the slightest
regard for the welfare of Austria, it not under the
immediate control of her rivals and her enemies.

(From the Morning Post of this day. )

The appointment of Mr. Labouchere as Colonial
Secretary of State is an evidence that the duties of
that important post are better understood and appre-
ciated than they were some 20 years since, or even
nearer the present day. Lord Palmerston might,
no doubt, have chosen a more eloquent man than
the former President of the Board of Trade—he
might have fixed on one with more showy qualifi-
cations—on one whose name would have filled more
satisfactorily the ears of the multitude ; but he
would hardly have found a Secretary of more ster- '
ling honesty, one on whose principles and conduct the
public could more fairly depend—one whose powers
of labour were better fitted to the vast work of the
office that ho undertakes. It is singular how little
public attention is directed to this last important
quality. The world hears that Sir William Moles-
worth, whose hereditarily delicate constitution
sank beneath the arduous work of his place, is suc-
ceeded by Mr. Labouchere, and it asks not what is ,
his power of application to the eager claims of the
fifty colonies which are cast on his hands—not
what is his ability to go justly and fairly through
tho tortuous and angry quatrols of these difficult
dependencies with the mother country and with
themselves—not how far he is able to decide the
measure of interference to be exercised in Sierra
Leone, and the extent of protection to be shown to
Australia and to Canada. These are matters which
the public, in its present state of warlike ardour,
thinks little of—all it asks or cares for is, what
does the Colonial Secretary think about the war