The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-22 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JANUARY 22,

like Turkey that you would help him whenever
he got into trouble, you relieved him from the
only proper means of strengthening his own king-
dom, and securing his independence, that is, a
sound system of policy at home.
Now it is certain that, cursed as our aristocratic
Cabinet may be with the love of dynasties, Eng-
land has no affection for them. We believe that
there is not a dynasty, except that of the SULTAN,
East of the Rhine, which all England would not
rejoice to see packed off to the Antipodes to-
morrow ; not a village in the country where some
one would not be found to pay for ringing the
bells if Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Naples, 4.5 c., were
clean swept of Hohenzollerns, Hapsburgs, Popes,
and Bourbons for ever. Even our Cabinet is
compelled to ally itself with a novas home in the
Imperial sense. The balance of power now
contended for by the nations of France and Eng-
land is that which is threatened by the barbarian
Tartar dynasty ; there is not a people of Europe
which has spirit enough to sigh for liberty, that
does not pray for the success of the Allies. All
" the suppressed nationalities " feel that Russia
is the great suppressor, and the right arm of other
suppressors. Assuredly it is not in accordance
with the wishes of all peoples that the ROMANOFF
dynasty should drag Turkey into his own scale.
In regard to preventing the SULTAN'S relying on
social reform for increased strength, admitting the
general correctness of Mr. GIBSON'S principle, yet
the fact is that the SULTAN and the best of Tur-
key's leaders are earnestly desirous to strengthen
the kingdom in this very way, that they have
made great advances, that those advances are the
object of loathing and dread at St. Petersburg,
and that the SULTAN needs the support of generous
treatment by civilised powers to enable him to
counter-work the plots of Mussulman Tories and
of degraded Greeks, egged on by the hypocritical
tyrant of the North.
Mr. GresoN, and in this Mr. COBDEN after-
wards concurred, seems to think that the terms
of peace are so far settled and accepted by Russia
that they are practically beyond recall ; and that
even the capture of Sebastopol would have no
effect upon them. We suppose him to mean that
nothing would be rescued from the grasp of Russia
even if we gained that city. Lord JOHN RUSSELL
has given forth the dictum that Russia is to lose
nothing, not a single acre of stolen territory. Oh 1
the age of petty statesmen ! Well, aristocracy
and its pet despots may yet find that they have
only delayed the inevitable explosion which will
vindicate the rights of the long down-trodden.
The hon. member is not distrustful of the sincerity
of Russia. Nor are we. We believe her to beper-
fectly sincere in purposing to lie and cheat through
thick and thin. She means to accept all that
suits her of the Four Points, be it nothing, little,
or much ; be it to gain a little time, or to ride
over all England on the shoulders of Lord JoHN
ausssix. Mr. G. is thankful Odessa was spared ;
so should we have been if mercy to savages had
not resulted in carnage to our troops. The men
who planned the expedition to Sebastopol were
madmen to leave the stores and military facilities
of Odessa. On the whole, the Manchester meet-
ing will not do so much for peace as the Leeds
meeting. It will rather tend to encourage the
great disturber of the peace. It was, however,
but a ticket meeting, and the leaders did not
even there venture on a resolution.

his felon hand one of his fellow-creatures was re-
morselessly dispatched, " unhouselled and iman-
nealed, no reckoning made, with all his imperfec-
tions on his head," to his dread account ; and if
a second was permitted a brief hour of grace,
BARTHELEMY was not to thank for it. The mur-
der was pitiless. Had escape been practicable at
the cost of a dozen lives, there is every reason to
believe he would have taken them. If hanging,
therefore, for murder be right and politic, BAR-
THELEMY was rightly and properly hanged. We,
however, have grave doubts as to the existence of
the right, and are confident, if it do exist, of the
impolicy of exercising it.
We do not intend to enter en the Scriptural
question. All we will say in relation to the
alleged right of inflicting death is, that it
seems inconsistent with the spirit of the
Christian dispensation. In hanging a man
for murder, are we not doing with him precisely
what he did with his victim, and for doing which
we punish him—that is, violently depriving him
of life—a striking anomaly ! Homicide, the
righteous avenger of murder ! Of the impolicy
of the punishment of death we are thoroughly
satisfied. It does not meet the exigency for which
it is set apart. Society finds no safeguard in it
from felonious violence or secret contrived mur-
der. The scaffold is a failure. Not only, however,
does it not accomplish the end for which it was
designed, but it also does much evil. It is a demo-
ralising spectacle, in that it tends to confound right
and wrong in men's minds by misdirecting sympa-
thy and mitigating the reprobation with which the
crime of murder should be regarded. Before con-
viction, the murderer is looked upon with horror
ley all; after conviction, provided he gives signs of
penitence, with dangerous sympathy by most. The
brand of CAIN is forgotten—he is regarded by
many solely as a fellow Christian, fit for, and
about to be launched into a blissful eternity. He
is more pitied than his victim, or than his crime
is reprobated. It is demoralising, also. In
the lesson of disregard for human life
and physical suffering it teaches the uneducated
masses. Veneration for a thing so sacred as
human life cannot, surely, but be diminished by
taking it with whatever circumstance as a punish-
ment. Far better, we submit, would it be to set
the convict apart in confinement from his fellows,
and there leave him, if penitent, to the
stings of conscience, and if impenitent to the
retributive justice of his MAKER. In the latter
case, it seems horrible in mere mortals to hurry
his unprepared soul before its Judge. The be-
lief, by the impulsive masses, that " the avenging
sprite" in his lone cell points its accusing fingers
at the convicted murderer by day and glares over
his sleepless pillow by night throughout, it may
be, a long course of years, would do more, in
our opinion, to render murder repulsive, and to
deter from its perpetration in the hour of tempta-
tion, than the present brief shameful exposure
and physical agony. The gallows is Gut of date,
and should be put aside.

Although we cannot concur in the concluding
Observations of our respected correspondent, we
gladly give insertion to his vias, knowing that
they are participated in by many excellent and
well-disposed men. We feel that truth must ever
be promoted by discussion—that the greater pub-
licity given to various opinions, the greater pro-
bability of sound conclusions being arrived at.
We have not hesitated to declare that capital
punishment cannot be altogether abolished.
That there are cases in which society is bound to
avenge the clea.th of any of its members, by the
soleuiu execution of the wilful and deliberate
murderer. This being so, we may rest on the
admission that "if hanging for murder be right
and politic, BARTHELEMY was rightly and properly
hanged." The only difficulty in the case arose
from the grave mistake of trying him for the
murder of poor CAARLES COLLARD, in place of
that of Mr. Moon; which would have brought
all the facts to light., and opened every possible
line of defence to the unfortunate criminal.
[En. SIITN.]

LONDON, BRIGHTON, AND SOUTII
COASU RAILWAY•

TO TER EDITOR OF TUX SUN.

SIR,—I am instructed by the Board of Directors to
iuform you that the accounts for the past half-year having
been this day submitted to them, they have decided upon
recommending the payment of a dividend for the half-
year of 31. 4s. per cent. on the Consolidated Stock of the
company, making the total dividend for the year 1854 to
amount to 5i per cent.—l am, sir, your obedient servt.,
FRED. SLIGHT, Secy.
Secretary's Office, London, 20th Jan., 1855.

LATEST NEWS.

The following telegraphic despatches have been
received ;--

" BERLIN, SUNDAY, JAN. 21.

" A despatch from Warsaw, dated 21st of
January, states that under date of the 12th of
January Prince Menschikoff announces that since
the Bth no change had taken place at Sebastopol.
He states that the siege operations of the Allies
made no progress, aid that the fire of their bat-
teries caused very little damage to the fortifica-
tions."

" VIENNA, SATURDAY, JAN. 20.

" It is reported that the Turkish troops under
Omar Pasha will soon march from Eupatoria,
under the proteotion of the fleets, towards the
Alma and the Belbeck."

The Vienna Presse publishes the following :
" CONSTANTINOPLE, JAN.. 11.

The French are unremittingly pushing forward
their batteries. The capture of a Russian redoubt
is confirmed.

"During the last two days there has been
tremendous fall of snow in the Crimea.
"It is said that Lord Stratford de Redeliff,)
will soon pay a short visit to London.

" Baron Koller has been definitively appointed
Austrian Minister at Constantinople.
"Four Frenchmen and seven Englishmen bas
been found stabbed in the streets of Galata.
"The perpetrators are organised bands of Gr,ec],
and Armenians, who have been traced.
"Redschid Pacha is very unwell, and has leen
obliged, by indisposition, to receive foreign diplo-
matists at home. Important negotiations LN
going on.

BERLIN, JAN. 20.

Austria, in a note, accompanied by a circular
dated the 14th January, renews her proposition
relative to the question of placing the Pruf Isian
and Federal armies on a war footing. This ques-
tion is now to be submitted to th• Die t at
Frankfort.

The following private telegraphic despatches
was received in Paris last night :
TOULON, 19th.

The Aigle steam-transport arrived here to-
day with 50 Russian prisoners on board. She
left Kamieseh on the 3d.

VARNA, 15wir.

The embarkation of the Ottoman troops con-
tinues. Several battalions of Egyptian infantry
will leave to-morrow.

MADRID, 18n7.

The Cortes in its sitting of to-day adopted a
resolution of great importance, and on which it
was expected that the Ministry would have been
defeated. The Cortes have voted by a large ma-
jority the Government Bill, fixing at 25,000 the
number of soldiers who are to be called out this

year.

A. private telegraphic despatch from Madrid, of
the 2Uth instant, announces, that in the sitting
of the 19th a vote of censure on the Ministry wa.:,

proposed. After a speech by Espartero, the
Cortes rejected the proposition by a majority of
138 against 62.

DEATH OF THE QUEEN OF SARDINIA.

We have received a telegraphic despatch from
our correspondent at Turin, dated the 20th of
January, announcing the death, on that evening,
of Queens Marie Adelaide, wife of King Victor
Emmanuel.

The Que en was in her 33d year, having been
born on the 3d of June, 1822. Her late Majesty
was the d6iughter of the Archduke Rainer, of
Austria.

The last accounts from the Crimea state that
General Canrobert had, in virtue of the power
vested in him by the Emperor, promoted eiz
captains to the rank of chefs de bataillon. Ac-
cording to. the usual custom observed at Constan-
tinople, the brevets of the decorations accorded
by the Sultan to the French army have been

inclosed in a bag of white satin. They have
been delivered to M. Sclieffer, the first Dragoman
of the French Embassy, who is to forward
them to General Canrobert.

The Pairie says, the passage of the Danube,
effected sonde days since by the Russians, has
given rise to a demand for explanations from
Prince Goirtschakoff, on the part of the Austrian
Government ; and that at the same time orders
have been. sent to Count Coronini to prevent the
Russians fl.om recommencing a campaign upon
the Danube.

A despatch in the _Patric, headed "The
Dasube," arLd dated Kamenicez, Jan. 13, says
—" The•staf f of the Ist Russian corps d'armee is
at Moltan. Radetzky's regiment of Hussars has
left for the Crimea.