The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-16 00:00:00

of calculation, but what it is with coroners'juries and
Lord Campbell's Act is of a very mild and limited
character. If our friend the excurcionist will push
his inquiries into the statistics of railway travelling
he wilt find that the chances of his coming back
safe, so far as the rail is concerned, are quite a mil-
lion to one in his favour. What were the chances
when we used to hold on tight by the seat while
the Engineer, the Quicksilver, or the Victoria,
swinging and rocking like cockboats, were racing
down Shap Fells or over Hartford Bridge Flat in
the last days of coaching opposition ? The fair bet-
ting was about ten to one against a spill, and the
guard always had stirring stories to teat of the last
upset of his rival. The risk by rail is now practi-
cally nothing, and from these reports we obtain a
further and a most valuable fact—that these rail-
way accidents, rare as they are, are never unavoid-
able. When they occur, if man are killed and share-
holders baulked of their dividend, it is because the
way has not been properly repaired, or the engines
and carriages properly examined, or the time pro-
perly.kept, or the signals made and observed. The
railway system itself is not, like ocean travelling,
subject to dangers which human prudence cannot
always provide against, and to natural forces which
human reason cannot always control.
- -

DAILY NEWS.—Of all the consequences of the
war in Denmark one of the most interesting to the
English people, with their domestic tastes, is per-
haps the destination in marriage of the royal children
of King Christian. When the Princess of Wales
came over for her wedding, attended by her family,
we were told that her sister was to marry the heir
of the Russian Empire. 'I he engagement has now
been made public ; and with it comes the news that
the King of Greece is to marry a daughter of the
Czar. Without giving.vvay too much to feelings of
compassion for these children of a happy home—
feelings natural to the English heart, which cares
so much more for welfare than for glory—we may
permit ourselves to glance into the murky future of
an empire now reaching a great crisis of its history,
and to shape out the life and experience of these
young people, who were reared in the most modest
of princely homes, and are now to fill two of the
most conspicuous thrones in Christendom, and to
prosper or pine, or stand or fall, with the fortunes
of the Russian empire. Most of us feel that this is
as true in the case of the King of Greece as of his
Cr'? nothing can be plainer than the object
of Russia in attaching Greece to her interests. So
young a Sovereign or careece, a sue to-taw f the
Czar, is the best instrument available for keeping
access to the Mediterranean open for Russia. The
southern gate thus guarded, the western is pro.
tected by the other marriage. Tbo-e who are sur-
prised at the first moment that the Emperor of All
the Russias should take a son and a daughter-in-law
from the most reduced and bitterly humbled of
reigning houses, have forgotten that the conquerors
of Denmark are precisely the powers most
formidable to Russia in their unscrupulous long-
ing for ports in the Baltic, and for the command
of the entrance from the North Sea. The more
the German Powers triumph over Denmark,
the stronger grows their cupidity of dominion
over the sea ; and again, the more they tyrannise
over their victim, the stronger becomes, in the
opinion of the Czar, the probability of a Scandina-
vian Union, strengthening Sweden, already hostile,
endangering his possession of Finland and putting
to hazard his fieedoas, of the Baltic. Before tie
treaty of 1852 was formed, we used to hear mourn-
ful bodings about the Russian claims to the throne
of Denmark, and the certainty that they would be
well maintained on account of the Russian interest
in the passage out of the Baltic; and this interest
may well explain the supposed condescension of
Russia to Danmark in the hour of Danish humilia-
tion. But how does this consist, some people ask,
with the terms the Czar is supposed to be on with
the enemies of Denmark ? Whether Lord Russell
be right or wrong in his confidence that the day is
past for Holy Alliances, there can be no doubt that
the idea and feeling embodied in such an allianee is
in full force in the three military Powers which
have held such frequent and close consultations of
late. The uppermost apprehension of all the three
Sovereigns—of Austria, Prussia, and Russia—is
now, more than ever, of what they call " the Re-
voluCon.'" Anxious as the Czar's agents are to dis-
claim any special relations, any private alliance
with Austria and Prussia, there can be no doubt
whatever that they have a common aim in putting
down all attempts of their victims and dependents
and their proper subjects to obtain any increase of
freedom. While this sympathy does not prevent
them quarrelling among themselves, and being
jealous of each other about the Baltic or the Adri-
atic or the Levant, it opens a prospect of keen heart-
sorrow for the children of Denmark, as for all of
the rising generation who are growing up in a
free country, where aspirations for liberty are re-
garded as a virtue—not as a crime. If the young
Princess, who is to be Empress by and by,
bears of the trials going on in Poland, what
can she think of them P What can she think
of putting irons on Polish ladies, who are shut up
in fortress prisons, wearing iron for vindictive pur-
poses and not for security ? What can be thought
by any modern young people of the vengeance on
the Circassians—of the wholesale extirpation of
enemies which takes place under the immediate
enders of the CZ At It is the Czar's notion of keep-
ing things safe and quiet to root up whole popula-
tions, and carry them by brutal methods to places
hopelessly remote, and set them down there to live
or die as may happen. His father did this; and he
does it, more than ever, though finding the ill effects
of the policy wherever the victims have been carried.
It cannot but strike everybody that his son again
will have to reap the whirlwind from this sowing of
the wind. Polish children sent to Georgia after the
catastrophe of 1831 have grown into men—not lov-
ing Russia. Tens of thousands of Poles, and of men
and women of other nations, have been peopling
Siberia from that time to this; and well-informed
persons tell us that th ence will arise, at no very
distant date, the disruption of the Empire. It is
the place of banishment of a choice selection of the
best political minds of Europe. In that vast region,
where they are settled in groups, nothing can pre.
vent their holding intercourse, though they cannot
escape. Sooner or later that vast dominion will
separate itself from European Russia, and its inha-
bitan is will repeat the institutions they have left
behind. This, at least, is what they believe ; and
the design forms a part of the prospect of the Im-
perial family, whether it is to be bellied or to suc-
ceed. Not only will the ghosts of Polish insur-
rections thus arise to scare the reigning house,
but there will be a remnant of the people of the
Caucasus, as truly indomitable as their fathers,
and ready to draw their swords in any company
against Russia. The Hungarians have unpar-
donable injaries to avenge. The Cossacks of the
Don are not yet won over ; and the Czar knows
it. His fears of the Fins are unconcealable. The
only land frontiers on which he can feel anything
like safety are the wild regions adjoining to Cer -
tral Asia, and those which border on Austria and
Prussia. He would fain render his European fron-
tier safe by Russianising it ; but he cannot carry
this point, which indeed none but a Czar would
have attempted. He can render villages, towns,
and districts desolate ; but he cannot fill up the
emptiness with loyal subjects. Nobody will buy the
lands, and nobody will live on any terms in the
vacated towns. To people reared in freedom there
is something appalling in the thought of passing,
never to return, into an empire fenced in by a
desolation like this. And the empire is no oasis
lying in the midst of barren wastes. There is
more to fear within than without after all that we
have seen. The Emperor's agents and advocates
extol the Russian polity as democratic when the
object is to flatter the Americans or to stop rumours
of a Holy Alliance; and it is considered enough to
show that it is not an aristocratic Government.
Whatever its description, it is a polity as favour-
able to revolution as to tyranny, and the most
wonderful breeder of corruption on record. The
Czars themselves proclaim this, one after another,
in the anguish of their hearts, when they can find
no good service in an hour of extremity, At pre-
sent the interior of Russia presents a spectacle
which awes those who will never set foot on its soil.
No middle class is there, and therefore no life in
the social or political organisation. There is no
money, either in the Treasury or in private hands.
Commerce is at a stand; public works of the most
indispensable character are standing still. The
landed proprietors can do nothing with their crops ;
many have no crops because of the drought, and
others have lost all they reaped by incendiary
tires. In many places the freed serfs are main-
taining themselves and giving no trouble; but in
others they make the nobles weary of their lives.
After six years' rest from the conscription the raising
of soldiers is as difficult as ever ; and there is no mo-
ney to pay them. Under all these troubles, and many
more, there is felt to be moving an explosive force
which may at any hour throw into ruins the defec-
tive structure of Russian society—and when the
chances of the only possible method of attaining to
safety and soundness are calculated, the most san-
guine of observers will hardly say that there is
time for the empire to be say& d. Things cannot
remain as they are. Great changes must be at
hand ; and when the change must come upon an
empire which has n i principle of unity in it, which
is so full of corruption as to have no room for liberty,
there can be no doubt as to the fearfulness of the
spectacle. The only way of escaping the dread ef
it is—not to look beneath the surface of court and
city life, which is gay enough for those who are
lightminded enough to enjoy it. Beneath
end beyond this the stoutest-hearted of Russian
Princes may well shrink from looking. The child-
ren of Denmark will doubtless be wooed to look
another way.

all-
Extraordinary Charge against a Gentleu2
of Locking up his Wife.

•
At the Lambeth Police-court, yesterday, Mr sal yard
Hammond, a gentleman residing at Laurel HG 'eck-
ham, was charged with locking up and keeping in clo, e c°n.'
finement his wife, Rosalind Hammond, without just cause.
Mrs Rosalind Hammond, a wretched, dejected, b
intellectual-looking woman, and who gave her evidence sv;
perfect clearness alai composure, was sworn, and exam fined
by Mr Beasley. Her evidence was to the effect that she
had been locked up altogether for about two years, 1, "
when she remonstrated with her husband, he laid the bla n3e,
upon two female servants who lived with them, and ti "
on one occasion, viz., at Christmas, 1862, he has severe '3'
beaten her with his fists.

Mr Beasley—With his closed fist ?
Witness—Yes. The women urged him on ; they sa F V)
was under the influence of beer.
Mr Beasley—Were the women present ?
Witness—Yes, The women were present, and ur.gill
him on to do it. Not Allen, but the other woman.
Mr Beasley— Is that woman's name Emily Whiteman?
Witness—Yes. Emily Whiteman. She was pres.sai
urged him on, and told him to do it.
Mr Norton—llave you had any quarrel with them ?
Witness—We have had many quarrels, but not withc ti`
reason.
Mr Beasley—Before you wero taken up had you be ell
down to Emily Whiteman's family ?

Witness—Yes. at
Mr Beasley—Did you tell your husband what you Nra
to see her parents about ?
Witness—Yes. About her adultery.
Mr Beasley—With whom ?
Witness—With him, my husband.
Mr Beasley—Did you tell your husband you had bean tG'
see Emily Whiteman's parents about his adultery with 02'0
daughter ?
Witness—Yes.

Mr Beasley—Was that before you were locked up? ,
Witness—That was the reason I was shut up, out 01
revenge.
Mr Beasley—When your husband struck you in 1862 did
you suffer much from his violence ?
Witness—Yes—l suffered a good deal about the temple'
It is a dangerous part to strike. I protected myself as much
as I could with my hands against his violence.
Mr Beasley—Were you subjected to violence at the handa
of other persons in his presence?
Witness—Never in his presence, but I have been severely'
knocked about the head by these two women, which
Dem% td NY ab uuks4k., ma to lam.
Mr Norton—How recently have you been struck by either
of these two women ?
Witness-1 cannot count the times ; they have been So
often.
Mr Norton—Are you fearful of seeing the woman of whoa
you have been speaking as one of the persons who had
assaulted you ?

Witness—Oh, no.
Mr Norton—Then let Allen be brought in and placed
alongside Mr Hammond, as she is implicated in the

charge.
This was done, and Mrs Hammond was again sworn as
to her evidence against Allen, which was read over in
het
presence.
In answer to the further questions of the learned cortoel
the witness said she had had two children, one of whoull/ffr
still living, and whom she had occasionally seen from
window, and the other only survived its birth a few tOrt:a
On the last occasion she was attended by Dr. Nine, but -1.6
had not arrived until after its birth. He continued to 0";
tend her for a month, and from that time, January 104011
had not seen or been visited by any medical man. es
Mr Beasley here remarked that Mrs Hammond
away from the wretched apartment in which she ha.i berii
shut up with scarcely decent clothing on her, and Ili fc"
shawl which she had round her, and a cloak It and bolo°
which had been lent to her, she could not be re ta°.ged;
She was destitute of proper under clothing, and I Le
Beasley) wished his worship would call on her tc t-brn-0,
off her shawl in order that he might see the forlc ;fly-a
di:ion in which a lady of the highest respectabili ti, `-ils
who had brought her husband £6OO a year was at prey
13-

placed.
The unfortunate lady here divested herself of the b°r°
rowed cloak and shawl, and presented such an apP e3r9frotlet
of utter wretchedness as caused a universal thrill of h
to pervade the court, and perhaps such a squalid, mieer%;l
looking being naver came before a magistrate to dera

justice.
t
The defendant said he was unprepared with le gal ,flssitijue
ance, and time was given to him for that purpose. Ar
meantime Le was ordered to put in bail, himself 111 P`'
,E 5 '
and two sureties of 0 each, to appear, and his °Wf tb:
was taken for his servant Allen to be present also 011 La-
day.