The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-29 00:00:00

bringing himself within the danger of the criminal law,
that people have come to regard a crime as no crime, simply
b3cause it is visited by no punishment. The absurd notion
that a parson truf,t3d with the property of another is less
guilty in appropriating it to his own use than a person not
so trusted runs through our whole law, and vitiates the
morals of commerce. The starving wretch who takes a
loaf of bread from a baker's counter is a thief, and is
punished accordingly ; the fraudulent trustee who sells
out stock standing in his name in tru4t for the widow and
the orphan has only committed a civil wrong, and is sub-
ject to no criminal liability whatever. A clerk or servant
who receives money on account of his principal for which
he does not account may be transported for embezzlement ;
a trustee who does the same thing is liable to do no pun-
ishment whatever. In this very case, if Strahan, Paul, and
Bates had not bee❑ bankers, but merely trustees of a mar-
riage settlement, they might have sold Dr. Griffith's bonds
and appropriated the proceeds without any fear of the Old
Bliley. It would be well if the detection of this great
iniquity were to lead to a reform of the criminal law in
this respect. We can see no reason why the acquiring the
rop ,rty of another pers m by fr..ud should not be crimi-
nal in all cases, instead of being penal in the case of clerks,
servants, hankers, factors, and persons using false pre-
tences, and in all other cases attended with the utmost
impunity. The question well deserves the attention of
the Legislature.

( Prom the Daily News of this day. )
The impression made upon the majority of that class in
society to which Sir John Dean Paul and his pertners be-
longed, by the sentence passed upon them, seems almost to
border upon panic. Nowhere do you hear the justice of
the sentence impugned—nowhere do you hear its necessity
deaied—bet on all sides you hear a muttering about its
being terribly severe. Well : it is severe, It falls more
heavily upon men who have occupied the social position
from which they have fallen than a similar sentence would
upon men of' the class to whom it is most frequently
awarded. The three convicts are no longer young ; they
have all their lives been accustomed to the indulgences of
the wealthier classes—to be waited upon with respect or
obsequiousness. The change in their condition will be
terrible. The poor felon who has all is life been accus-
tomed to play at hide and seek with the police, who has
been one day en the verge of starvation, the next rioting
in vulgar emcees, is scarcely aware of a change. Fourteen
years' transportation to such a man sometimes will be the
means of mak;ng him more comfortable ; to Paul, Strahan,
and Bates it is a living death. And yet who is there that
does not feel in his heart that justice could net have been
satisfied with a more lenient sentence? These men have
sinned against their better knowledge. The motive
which impelled them to crime —the vanity of appear-
ing more prosperous in the eyes of the world than they
really were, ought to have been as nothing to the
motive which held them back from its perpetration
—the desire to retain the fair reputation they en-
joyed. Yet, to ciatify this poor and paltry vanity, they
stooped to bleach of trust; they inclined the certain risk
of beggaring many widows and orphans—of robbing the
poor. And their clime was not, as it has been sought
to be represented, a yielding to a sudden and irresistible
pressure; it was deliberately set about, and persevered in
for months, if not for years. If they were to be pun-
ished at all, any punishment short of that pronounced
against them would have been a barefaced mockery. Nor
can wo conceal from ourselves that at the present moment
each an expression of the moral sense of the community
as the conviction and sentence of Paul, Strahan, and
Bates has been urgently needed. It is only necessary to
recall the history of railway speculation, and certain recent
disclosures respecting the manner in which monetary ne-
gotiations are conducted, the payment of Customs evaded,
and aricles of food systematically adulterated, to be con-
vinced that a moral plague sore is spreading through our
commercial community. Nay, listen to the semi-apolo-
getic tone in which the conduct of Paul, Strahan, and
Bates, and of others who have recently been the town
talk, is spoken of by men in fair credit with their
fellow-citizens, because they have, or are supposed to
have, plenty of money in their pockets. We have
little faith in, and less charity for, that morality which
shows itself in severe censure of those who fall fr, m the
paths of virtue. We know that severe professions of p:in-
ciple are sometimes coupled with great laxity in practice.
Still, exneiienca teaches us that when the moral tone of a
community is lowered—when it gets accustomed to look
upon knavery with indulgence and to speak of it with
levity—the vigour of national character is relaxed, and the
degraded people sink in the scale of nations. England has
of late been insensibly gliding down this perilous inclined
plane; and seine such startling incident as the conviction
and sentence of the three bankers was needed to rouse us
to the necessity of an effort to regain our old standing-
ground.
The imprese;on made upon the majority of what are con-
ventionally termed the lower classes, by the conviction and
sentence of Sir John Dean Paul and his partners, is some-
what different. Before the trial took place we had noticed
a disposition among them to repel with incredulity the
belief that a jury could be found to convic:-, " gentlemen."
Since the trial we are not certain that there has not ex-
isted among them a considerable amount of disappoint-
ment at findieg their depreciatory anticipations regarding
our Courts of Justice falsified. Many appear to be half
sorry that au opportunity for grumbling and censure has
not been afforded them. But still more extensively may
be found to prevail a scepticism as to the possibility of
the sentence being entries into effect with its full
severity. And we frankly confess that to some ex-
tent we ou-selves share in this sceptical feeling: Wo
have had some opportunity of observing how the
house-onice is at all times pestered with_a_pldiesa for
remissions of sentences, iu behalf of any coisiietil—Whir
have the good luck to possess friends and patrons. Sni:k
applications are motived, in the great majority of cases,
not by any belief that the convict has been harshly or
unfairly con.lemned, or that he has shown any unequivo-
cal. signs of amendment, but simply by a foolish, unrea-
soning good-nature, or a silly vanity of being thought to
possess influence in h'gh quarters. The pertinacity of ap-
plicants of this kind is inconceivable. Month after mouth,
and year after year, they return to the charge. Every
change of Al inistry—a frequent enough event in our days
—stimulates them to try whether the new man is not
more impressible than bis predecessor. And generally they
succeed in tiring out the resistance of the Home-office.
Whoever occupies that department may make up his mind
to be bombarded by memorials in behalf of Paul, Strahan,
and Bates. The bombardment cf Sebastopol was a joke
to the bombardment that awaits him. We can scarcely
conceive any amount of human obstinacy sufficient to
withstand the vigorous and incessant fire that will be kept
up, and shall be noways surprised to learn a year or two
hence that the convicts are quietly rn,ticating at Bou-
logne, or that they have opened a bank at Perth or Free-
mantle, in 'Western Australia. At the same time we
shall deeply regret such a consummation, as calculated to
destroy the effect of the very necessary lesson that has
just been read to our trading community.
The possibility of an appeal from the sentence of the
Court has been spoken of. It is not very likely that such
an appeal will be made ; taking into account the stern,
but dignified, language held towards the prisoners by the
presiding judge, it is all but certain that it would
Its success would be to be deprecated ; for it would go far
to confirm a suspicion, already too prevalent, that our
penal laws are mere cobwebs, through which big wasps
and hornets break easily, though small flies are caught in
them. The reversal of the sentence would not restore the
convicts to the respect of their fellow-citizens—for even
their counsel, at the trial, addressed themselves merely
(«1 misericordiam jadicis, acknowledging the guilt of their
clients. By the way, we observe that the learned banis-
ters, after cudgelling their brains for something to say in
behalf of their clients, fell upon the stale device of attack-
ing the press. Sir F. Thesiger asserted that "for weeks
and weeks the conduct of the defendants bad been com-
mented upon in numerous publications, and every possible
prejudice had been excited against them in the public
mind." Mr. Edwin James "entreated the jury not to
allow their decision to be influenced by the prejudice that
had been cast upon the defendants by the remarks of the
press." Now, it is the misfortune of our position to be
obliged to read more newspapers than the generality
of mon, and wo confidently affirm that, with the excep-
tion of our blundering and bullying contemporary the
Times, the English press, with a laudable love of fair
play, abstained from commenting on the case of the
three convicts before trial. The learned counsel
would have said the Times if they had not been afraid
of that journal, but quailing before its vixen tongue, they
hinted their complaints under the safe generality of " the
press." This is grossly unjust ; for English journalists, as
a body, are fully more observant of the dictates of morality
and decorum, in adopting or advocating a cause, than bar-
risters. We do not believe that any one on our own esta-
blishment—from the chief down to the youngest and most
unreflecting "devil"—could be brazen enough, for the sake
of a fee, with all the eyes in a -crowded court of justice
riveted upon him, to maintain by shameless sophistry that
Sir John Dean Paul is a religious man. The baronet may
have that vague, instinctive devotional sense which is not
uufrequently found to survive the depravation of the morel
sense ; he may bo of those who tremble before the ideas of
super natural power impressed upon them in youth, and !Kok
to deprecate punishment by abject petitions ; but that is
mot religion, it is mere superstition. Religion implies the
comb:nation of the devotional instinct with a conviction
that to indulge it and yet commit moral offences i 3 ereasic.:
cal blasphemy, and the grossest insult that can be offend
.te
j the Deity. Had Sir J. D Paul been really religious, he
might have yielded to strong momentary teruptatmenmabti;
he could not have persevered in the deliberaten,:iYe, t
course of dishonesty of which he has been
ue that
learned counsel who affected on Friday last to sapaie.
.ce.). :ed. The
Sir J. D. Paul is a religious man, NS ith words
try in return for his fee; did notcieievnt 6
lie raid.hde and jury would
which he know the common sense of ju g
see through at once.

-- ,E —A fire occurred
DESTRUCTIVE FIRE IN
ou Tuc.ida,y night, at the
in Thorverton, Devonshire;
DlMlsm' . .
surrounded by a number of
Wellington Inn, which
ruarnates were ;n bed when the
dwelling-houses. Told'ethey escaped with d;fficulty. B,
alarm was g
a:;fritvheefram Exeter, a d,stance
of
fore the eng-Lveesn'oo3old
premises connected with
eight miles, the whole
the W
epington Inn, tnether with the stock of beer,
.
e consumed, as well, as five dweii;,3,.
spirits, .tc.! yver
houses adjoining.
CoRN °-
vo FLOUR IN F-RILICCE.—The price of calm
Burin the
past week has tended decidedly downwards
,
in
h ;French markets. Corn has been coming in rapidly
botht from the United States and the Danubian pro-
VInC2P, and the flour mills are now at full work. The
consequence is that the holders of flour have been endea•
vouring to sell part of their stock, and, as the e frirs hare
taken place in almost every direction at the same time,
prices have become lower. In the Paris market at pre.
sent the stock of flour on hand is about 18,000 metrical
quintals, the quantity, it will be seen, continuing to ad-
vance rather rapidly. It was difficult to effect sal( it
during the pact week in Paris the millers hold nz out
for previous pricei, and the 'buyers being determined
not to give them. The very best quality flour can be
now obtained for 104 f. or 105 f. the 157 kilogrammes, and
inferior kinds for from 100 f. or 104f'. Very little wheat
was sold in Paris during the week, pureba,,ers absolutely
I
refuting preceding prices. Some English
u7.l2,ertwas
a t
ifered (to be taken at Havre or Bulogne- m )
I60!-. the 120 kilogrammes, but that price could not be
realised.—Ga/i9nani's Messenger.