The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-10 00:00:00

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C__ -3

conference, that he should be known to have fifty col°•
nies on his hands. Oa this view it would be as well that
the titles ol the colonies should he tacked to his name in
all the documents connected with the negotiation. What
an imposing title is that which one comes upon in Por-
tuguese affairs—" the Patriarch of the Indies !" There
are no Indies, at least no Portuguese Indies, for the man
to be Patriarch of so " Minister of the Colonies" would
be a vastly superior and more substantial title. We
read that when Antony with the Queen of Egypt went
a progress through the East there were always a . _
dozen kings in his train, and as many more waiting
his arrival at the end of the day's journey. It
would conduce vastly to the prestige of our plenipo-
tentiary if the deputies of Victoria, the Council of
New Zealand, the members of the Jamaica Assembly,
Canadian agents, or Ceylon proprietors, were always
dogging his steps, crowding hie ante-rooms, thrusting
constitutions into his hands, or throwing them into
his carriage windows. How the natives would stare
at the elan who could fill up then interstices of a '
difficult negotiation with the cares of half the world !
It is true that, apart !rom the consideration of
our colonies, the Congress itself would have an odd
look. One of the Emperors concerned in its institution
has quitted the scene ; if another should go to the Crimea,
while the representative of another power should have
his mind in fifty other places all over the world, there
would at least be an equality of ill conditions favourable
to the balance of power. But the speculation of a good
end by bad means is always hazardous, and, at the risk
of making one leg of the table stronger than the rest, we
would rather Lord John Russell had only the affairs of
Europe on his hands. But, then, what is to be done
with the colonies, especially the more lively and growing
ones ? They are like boys shooting up into young men,
just at the time when the father has no money to send
them to school, or to do anything else with them. The
young Titans are frightfully precocious and aggressive.
You cannot put them to bed, as nursemaids do little
children when they want to go out for the evening.
When gentlemen arrive in London brimful of colonial
importance, and ask for the Colonial Secretary, what a
thing that they should be told he is at Vienna, waiting
till Europe is pacified ! Homer tells us that when the
Greeks had made a great sacrifice, and offered up a mul-
titude of prayers, nothing could be done just then, be-
cause the gods had gone into Ethiopia ; and we read
somewhere also of a deity who could not hear prayers
because he was on a journey. But of all persons to be
on a journey the centre of the colonial system was about
the most inconvenient. How would the planets be off if
the sun were to abscond, nobody knew where, for an un-
known period of time ? Had Lord John Russell held
the office when he started we should have advised the
colonies to apply for a writ sae exezt regoo ; but Lord Pal-
merston has sent the Colonies after Lord John, and these
great communities find themselves conferred in coin-
m.endam, on an absent Plenipotentiary.
But there is an expiation. Thera always is an expia-
tion, and the explanation is always satisfactory. Lord
John Russell is not expected to be long away. He has
only just to settle the basis of a treaty, and when he has
laid the foundation an inferior artist is to proceed with
the superstructure, and work out the details. Should
he not succeed as to the " basis," the negotiation will
be soon broken off, and in that case, also, we shall have
Lord John among us, or rather among the Colonies
All this is the language of hope, or of despair. We
should be very sorry to charge ourselves with the pay-
ment of a considerable annuity till the declaration of
peace, or even till the breaking off of the negotiation.
Everybody seems to think it his interest to fight and to
negotiate at the same time—to wield the sword in the
right hand, and the pen in the left. Meanwhile, we are
t)ld Sir George Grey can do the Home-office and the
Colonies together, as he is at home in both departments.
Yet he is but an invalid, and his predecessor in the
Home-office did not find it too little to occupy his time.
He notoriously concentrated his attention on one or
two more irueortaut and interesting topics, and left the
'rest to get on as it could. But this explanation only
excuses one Ministerial plurality by another, and sub-
stitutes a private arrangement for a public absur-
dity. The Colonies, just detached from the War
Minister, have been given ostensibly to a diploma-
-1 tilt to be governed really by the Secretary of State
for the Home Department. 'snore is a fatal want
of simplicity in these arrangements, that rather
looks like taking liberties with the constitution and
t: fl ng with the people. Indeed, it is only another
illustration of the process which Mr. Cobden calls finding
a horse too weak to draw a cart, and putting another
hot se to draw both. In this instance there is smnething
more, f,r tee u.euv horse has his own work. Lord J.
Re sell must draw the colonies, so the whole team is to
be t:ed behind Sir G. Grey in the shafts of the Home-
office, and the two Ministers, the Home-office, the
fifty colonies, and the congress of Vienna, are all to
draggle on in one tangle. This explanation may or may
not satisfy Parliament, but we feel sure it will not satisfy
the colonies. If they find that their Government is a
sinecure, a mere Duchy of Lancaster, a light appendage
to another office, they will consider what they gain by
such a connexion. They have had King Stork in the
shape of some arbitrary secretaries and worrying subor-
dinates. They will now think they have King Log,
after all the least respectable of the two. The only proper
explanation is to remove the scandal at once, by giving
each man his own work, in deed as well as in name, and
keeping him to it, so that we may know who is answer-
able for it. .- e „

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

MIDLAND CIRCUIT,—LINCOLN, 111Ancir 9.
Robert Johnson, aged 48, a labourer, was indicted for

a rape.
Sarah Ann Cocking said—l am 17 years of age. I
live at Barrow. At half-past eight in the evening of the
13th of October I was walking towards Barrow, with
Eliza Jane Smith, a married woman named Sarah Rey-
nolds, and Mary Franke. It was dark. When WQ were
about half a mile from Barrow, we heard a man coming
towards us. He was swearing. We were all frightened,
and turned back and ran away. We ran forty or fifty
yards, until we came to a gate. Smith and I were on
the gate together. The man who was following us said,
" It's no use your getting over the gate. I'll kill the
first I get hold of." We got over before he came up,
and ran on into the field. The man followed and caught
me. I was lame, and could not run so fast as 'the
others. I had got thirty or forty yards from the
gate when he overtook me. I was then running
towards Barrow. He seized me by the cape and the
shoulders, and threw me down. I screamed. The
man said, " If you don't hold your noise I'll murder
you." While I was down the prisoner perpetrated
the offence. He threatened 'to kill me, and said,
" Your life is in my hands." He put his tongue
into my mouth to prevent me from screaming. I re-
sisted as well as I could. The man soon got up. He
then took me across the field and lifted me over a gate.
I ran on, but he followed and caught me. He threw
me clown again. I get up and ran away. He threw
me down again, and effected his purpose a second time.
He was loner with me than before. He said, "I'm
Ralph the burglar. I've got a brace of pistols in my
pocket, and I'm going to Barrow to shoot Jonathan
Jug." I had heard of Ralph the burgla6 and of his
breaking out of Lincoln Castle. He next took me down
tile field o the Barrow waterside, saying he would take
ma home. When he got ma to the field next the road,
ho perpetrated the offence again. 1 was weak then. He
next took me down a Line, holding me by the hand. He
took me to an osier holt. He lay down, and I knelt over
hips and prayed for myself, expecting every moment
that ho would kill me. I prayed for him too. He got up
and said he would bile me home. He said I was such a
good creature he would not kill me. He asked me if I
could swear to him. He then took me to another field,
near Barrow Haven. When there, he threw me down
and again repeated the offence. He lifted me up. I
. could scarcely walk. He took me through Mr. Cuth-
bert's yard. We got there at about half-past 11. When
got there he said, "They ere looking for you with
laeteins. I must go away and cut my stick." I saw
lighte and went towards them. I crossed into a field
and got over a sheep net. There was a second sheep net,
but I could not get over it. I fainted there. The prisoner
ie the man. The moon ruse while he was with me.
, When I came to myself, I was in bed. I was ill for three
Ne leftthe Barrow prisoner
ata t
about Bar
-
days. I made a complaint te my father and the medical
He w
Aboutas then
monthenin
aftersaw
custody,
V
7 o'clock. We had walked about two miles and a half,
and bad got within half a mile of home, when we beild
the man.

Miss E. J. Smith corroborated the prosecutrix. She
added—l took hold of the proseentrix's hand to help
her on, as she was lame, and could not run so fast as we
could. I was obliged to let go her hand, and directly
after I heard her scream. I looked round and saw that
the prisoner bad hold of her. We all went to Cuthbert's
and told what had happened.
John Lockwood said--I went out that night with
forty or fifty others. We had lanterns. I found the
prosecutrix in a fainting state in Dee's field. She
was standing near a sheep pen. Her head was
drooping, and she was insensible. It was between
liftedttl twelvehs
cearl
onuudpo
yoa
and
ix
cewl
carried
rtetilnei
dn
gwh, we found
e rhome. her.
She
was
at r
insensible
all the time. Once ,or twice she lifted her hands, as if
" Oh, you bad man."
John Cocking, the father of the prosecutrix, proved her
state when brought home, and her complaint to him of
the ill-usage she had experienced.
Mr. W. H. Shearwood said—l was at the houFe when
the girl was brought home. She was cold, exhausted,
and insensible. Her dress was soilod—her person
bruised, swollen, and covered with blood. There wore
There was
of theo hymen,doubt
of
herwhi chchhaasdtibtye.en re cen tly
ed
ruptured.ithe
It was then roved that the prisoner, who iiv
neighbourhood, was at Barrow on the evening of the I3th
of October ; that he had with him a jacket and other
articles which, on the night in question, ho had got rid
of in various fields near the scene of the outrage ; that
he had
apparebisiceontdinirynmorekdsihatheely,
ialeitaertwfiarrsdtsd;entileradt,evoenr
ibmeivnig„g " been in Barrow in his life," and said that
his name was not Johnson. He afterwards accounted for
these falsehoods by saying that he was unwilling to go
to prison to await his trial,
Mr. Justice Coleridge summed up.
The jury at once returned a verdict of guilty.
Mr. Justice Coleridge said it was one of the most
dreadful cases that he had ever tried. A young woman,
of unbletnished virtue, guilty of no act of imprudence,
but innocently walking out in company with respectable
female friends and companions, had been subjected to bru-
tality as revolting as was ever disclosed in a court of jus.
Coe. The prisoner had once been acquitted of rape, and
ruahaps that acquittal had given him hopes of impunity
when he committed this crime. The learned judge then
e sentenced the prisoner to be transported for life.