The Sun.
London, England, 1852-04-01 00:00:00

BIRTHS IN THE WEEK.

Males
Females

... 814
... 798

Total ... 1,607
*ln this number are included 31 by Scarlatina, 42
by Typhus Fever, and 13 by Diarrhoea.

GULLIBILITY.—We were shown a
ic n the provinces.
circular, which
has been very extensively disseminated
It explains (with patterns of the articl e produced) a pre-
tended patent for the manufacture of afabric in universal
demand. It promises to each subscriber for one share,
price ss. (to be sent, of course, per money-order), not a
paltry return of 300 or 400 per cent., but a good round
income. "Subscribers," we quote the precise words of the
printed bait, "will, for every ss. they invest, realize from
751. to 300/. sterling per annum !"—to be paid, it is politely
stated in another part of the prospectus, quarterly, Now,
that the wild extravagance of such
rational people will say
a promise, exceeding all possible gullibility, would be its own
defeat. The said rational people, however, will be (as they
sometimes are) in error. Credulity has no bun ds.t is a
fact that since the isme of that golden circular, o
the Postloffice
authorities have paid to its concoctor—not hundreds, but
thousands of pounds. Post office orders have poured in from
believers in impossible profit at such a rate that 300/. were
handed over to the successful schemer in the course of one
single week.—Dickens's Household Words.
Two fires occurred in London yesterday, one at a
lucifer-match manufactory in Bethnal-green, which was de-
stroyed ; and the other at a floor-cloth factory in Lambeth,
which was considerably damaged. The origin of both fires
accidental.

RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE.
(From the Spectator.)
The actual position of the leaders of parties is full of
valuable instruction. It is a position of disappointment
and trouble. Taking Lord Derby, Lord J. Russell. Lord
Aberdeen, or the Duke of Newcastle, and Mr. Cobden, as
chiefs of the parties into which the country is divided, not
one of the four can be either satisfied with the present or
hopeful as regards the future. On the contrary, every
one of them is in a mesa, and without any clear prospect
of getting out of it. And, what is of more importance,
because it contains the moral of the lesson, each case is
one of retributive justice; the discomfort endured being
in the nature of a punishment justly incurred by the auf•
ferer's wilful misconduct.
Lord Derby has to swallow free trade. That is ine-
vitable. He cannot do it at a gulp, as nauseous doses
are taken with the least inconvenience, but must needs
sip, and suck, and taste to the uttermost the gall
and wormwood which the nature of things has pre-
scribed for him. And why? why cannot he embrace
free trade, like so many before him, without this pain-
ful loathing and slow torture? Because of his own
behaviour in 1846, and down to the time when the
Queen sent for him the other day, at Lord John
leussell'e suggestion. He was the author and has been
the stay of the Protectionist party. If he is not a
Protectionist, he is nothing. His rash quarrel with
Sir Robert Peel, his leadership in the persecution of
that true statesman, his delusive promises to landlords
and farmers and shipowners, his professions of
confidence in the triumph of a lost cause, his mis-
leading eloquence—all these things now rise up against
him, it not to torment his conscience, at least to sting his
pride, by making his recantation itself shameful, and
so compelling him to recant in a doublefaced, shameful
manner. In leading an Opposition for fun or spite, he
could pretend what ho liked with impunity; but
the responsibilites of power at once unmask the impostor,
and without relieving him from the necessity of going
on with the detected sham. Our first simile is not quite
exact: he has not merely to swallow bitterness sip by
sip, but to swallow it and bring it up over and over again
till truth shall be fully avenged. No wonder that Lord
Derby should have avoided office as long as possible.
He might hare avoided it altogether but for Lord
John Russell's parting advice to the Queen. That ad-
vice was unconstitutional and improper, because given
after constitutional responsibility had ceased. But
another responsibility attaches to Lord John Russell
in this matter. He is still responsible to his party;
and he appears to have done them a great disser-
vice. lie probably imagined that Lord Derby
would not swallow free trade, and would therefore
have to repeat last year's process of in and out again;
the Whig chiefs getting back to office, "as you were,"
with the advantage of having this time seriously fright-
ened the least thoroughgoing of their supporters. It
was a sad miscalculation. Lord Derby, really aban-
doning Protection with whatever wry faces, may
keep the government for a long while. Any
change would be endurable after Russell-Grey
rule for six yews; and the actual change, as it pro-
mises the benefit of useful Whig labours in opposition,
has merits independent of the mere novelty. Lord
John, accordingly, is now reproached by many of his
party with having betrayed them by his awkwardness,
or perhaps through the singular jealously of his dis•
position. They ask why, if he took on himself to pro-
pose his successor, he did not name somebody who
might perhaps have restored the Liberal party to the
position, which his Government never held, of being
supported by a majority of its own in the House of
Commons. And this question suggests a well-merited
reproach. For years the ex-Premier was urged to
strengthen the Liberal party—to obtain for it the con-
fidence of the country and a majority of its own in
the Commons—by getting rid of the moat inefficient
and unpopular of his colleagues, and calling to his
assistance such Whigs as Lord Clarendon, and such
former colleagues of Sir Robert Peel as the Duke of
Newcastle, Mr. Gladstone, and Sir James Graham.
But no; his inordinate but feeble self-sufficiency,
combined with his belief in the indefeasible right of
certain Whig families to govern, could not stomach th©
proposition that his Ministry needed improvement. So
he went on, depending on the frail support of being
squeezed between two Oppositions, till the general in-
capacity of his Government became too manifest for
longer toleration. Deserted by his adherents, turned
out of office by himself, and disregarded by
the country; he is provoked by the consequences
of his blunder in proposing Lord Derby as his
successor into making a plunge or two in Opposition;
but having been justly reproved for quarrelling with
Lord Derby's Government because, like his own for
six years, its party is a minority in the Commons,
for threatening to stop the supplies, and for
otherwise seeking to embarrass the Government
of which ho is the principal author, he is now
pretty quiet and seems to be conscious that he has
" made a mull of it." If his party know their own in-
terest, they will keep him as inactive in Opposition as he
was in power. As intending to be again Prime Minister
of England, he is a heavier encumbrance to them than
their own errors and neglects in having allowed him to
make a Tory Government for some years to come far
from improbable.
The colleagues of Sir Robert Peel cannot be much
better pleased with themselves than Lord John Russell
and Lord Derby. Their great chief has been gone
nearly two years, and they have not yet even chosen
a leader, They have seen the Russell Government
slowly dying out for want of a policy, and have
themselves neglected to promulgate, it may be
even to construct, a policy of their own. They
must know that wbat the country at large has needed
and desired for a long while is statesmanlike purpose in
the leaders of parties; of any party, it may be said; for the
old party distinctions and associations have been almost
extinguished by the struggle about free trade, and a large
preponderance of public favour would be given either to
Lord Derby, or to Lord John Russell, or to any of the
Peelites (they have no leader to be named), or to Mr.
Cobden, if ho would declare a sufficient policy of
Conservative reform, and give evidence of possessing
the will to carry it into effect. The Peelites have had
ample opportunity of satisfying the country in this
respect, and they have almost entirely neglected
it. They had a great prestige to work upon, and
many other advantages; but nave neither done, nor
even said, anything of consequence. Self-imposed
obscurity is the defect of their position. If Sir
James Graham, the only one of them who has not
appeared asleep since 1846, had lately taken a more
distinct line of his own, a course moro independent
of the Russell-Grey Whigs—still more, if men of
the ability and patriotism which private circles attri-
bute to the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Gladstone,
acting in concert with the respected Lord Aberdeen,
had formed a clear view of the public exigencies, and had
made it known by actively sharing in the business of Par-
liament, the Queen, it is very likely, would not have taken
Lord John Russell's advice about sending for Lord Derby.
In the politics of a free country inaction is a personal dis-
ability. And the Peelites cannot say that they were not
warned long ago of the consequences of their torpor. If
they regret a general election upon all sorts of false
lefties, and the prospect of a new Parliament without
fixed ideas, led by a Government of pretenders without
a policy, they must feel guilty of having neglected op-
portunities of action by which the mischief might have
been averted.
The Manchester gentlemen are out of court. Though
they have not been deficient in a bustling kind of acti-
vity, their views of national policy consist of vague
generalities suited only to the platform. They may
enjoy a triumph in seeing Lord Derby swallow free
trade ; but when that spectacle shall be over, they
will have no function or distinctive character. In-
deed, they greatly resemble the Protectionist party in
having but one idaa, and one which is on the point of
disappearing from our politics; so that, in two or three
months, they will probably break up through differences
of opinion on other subjects. There would have been
just the same prospect for the Derbyites if any of our
parties were now capable of supplying the country with
an acceptable policy, and the Queen with a man qualified
to carry it into effect.

WHY DON'T YOU CRY, YOU FOOL!
The trial at the Salisbury Assizes, lately, of an
unlucky wight, who had been helping himself to his
neighbour's goods, gave rise to a piece of ingenuity on
the part of a well-known lawyer, which to us, who
chanced to witness it, was somewhat amusing. The
prisoner had been defended by counsel, and every thing
that could be said on his behalf had been said, but
the case against him was too palpable to admit of a
shadow of doubt, and a verdict of guilty was pronounced.
The Judge seemed to look upon the culprit, who was a
rough-looking lellow, destitute alike of friends and cha-
racter, with some degree of pity, and previous to passing
the sentence of the law upon him, commenced giving him
a few words of advice. The benevolence of his Lord-
ship's tone was not thrown away upon the lawyer, who
seemed to feel that so long as there was a chance of
helping his client he was bound to do his utmost. Una-
served, therefore, ho at once whipt behind the dock, and
month V
4 at Y
putting his hands to the sides of his mouth, whispered o
the prisoner as loud as prudence would permit—.4 t -
don't you cry, you fool! Be quick—you'll save at
least I"rhe culprit, who before this was standing as un-
moved as a statue, immediately took the hint, rubbed tis
coyomese
by
witha hseisbskanbufcktlbees,daegndradfoerf,l4
situationmoment
stood. The dodge answered. trust (said his Lord-
4wehdicohve ilre-
ship) that the sense of shame which you now feel will
prevent you from appearing a •
galn in such a situation in
a court of justice, and in that hope I
am induced to pass
upon you a much lighter sentence
than I should
other-
wise do, which is that you be imprisoned in the House
of Correction, in this county, for the space of one ca-
lendar month." The fellow, we were afterwards in-
formed, is a most hardened rascal.—Devizes Gazette.
T

-HE COST OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
According to Mr. Brayley, in " Britton's Public
Buildings of London," which contains a plan and five
views of the structure, fall half a million of money was
ultimately expended upon Somerset House, and it was
then left
have unfinished.
recently Th
The
turned wholeup,and
of thea
willc ount e' w
may mention,probably°
afford matter forpu judgmenthlication as to the probable cost of. That Chambers was not
more correc% in his
the work than some architects of modern days, is proved
by the circumstance that, in a report presented by him
to the House of Commons, he said ho thought, though
there were difficulties which prevented accurate computa-
tion, that the cost certainly would not exceed 250,0001.
What do we now care whether it cost a quarter of a
million or half a million ; and how much do, s the
question affect the opinion we form of the building and
its designer? Nothing. Nor will any ask a century
hence, when contemplating some of the buildings " run
up" in our time (If they last so long), what these
cost, or find in the small outlay, if they should ask, any
reason for withholding condemnation. Prudence and
circumstances must, of course, regulate expenditure. If
we must have a building for a particular purpose, and
bee only certain Qt Plash the hahlipg laaet

MYNA ANZAMPSIII(.....:LI9,II•IM.
London: Printed and Published by MIIRDO YOUNttify
No. 112, Strand, Printer, at The Sun Office, 250:,
Strand, in thQ Precinct of the Savoy, in the coosPo
kLidcll94ex, Thumlay, April 102',