The Sun.
London, England, 1852-06-25 00:00:00

THE CASE OF DR. ACHILL' AND DR.
NE WMAN.
(From the Times.)
It is curious to observe upon what narrow issues the
spirit of party virulence and religious discord can cos-
eentrate themselves. The animosities of England and
Scotland centred for a time on the disputed authenticity
of the poems of Ossian, and Whig and Tory never en-
countered each other more fiercely than on the appa-
rehtly collateral question raised by the frailties of
Queen Caroline. The long animosity which has pre-
vailed between the Churches of England and Rome has
been stimulated to the highest point by aggression and
retaliation, by political agitation and private contro-
versy. In no breast, however, does the flame of reli-
gions hatred burn so fiercely as in that of a convert.
Would you hear all that can be said against the doc-
trine and discipline, of the Church of England?—seek
it from the lips of a renegade priest. Would you hear
the rabid tirades of Exeter-hall against the Church of
Rome outdone?—attend the preechinge and read the
publications of some apostate friar. Thus it comes to
pass that questions of the highest dignity and lest im-
potence are brought down to the level of a personal
brawl, and that the great cause of the freedom of pri-
vate judgment and the progress of the human intellect
Is bound up with the questionable character of an
obscure ecclesiastic. We cannot accept this issue; we
cannot concede that this great controversy can be in the
tligheest-degree advanced by attacking or defending the
character of Dr. Achitli, and we feel that the scandalous
and indecent matter which both parties, in their zeal to
damage each other, have brought before the public eye,
is likely to do more injury to the cause of morality and
religion than any sectarian or controversial triumph can
possibly counterbalance. In apportioning the blame of
this public scandal it is impossible to acquit Dr. Newman
of having been the deliberate cease of the revolting con-
flict we have just witnessed. In his eisal to destroy the
evidence of Dr. Achilli against the Church, which fee,
persons have condemned with more severity than himself,
Dr. Newman did not content himself with general and
sweeping charges, but entered into details of time,
place, and name, which were, in fact, more in the nature
of a challenge than a criticism. The challenge was as
greedily accepted as it was vauntingly offered, and
so, by the uantual consent of the professors of two
rival religions which agree in teaching that " Blessed
are the pure in heart," we have been involved in one of
the most indecent investigations which ever sullied the
atmosphere of a court of justice. What has either party
gained by dragging these revolting details before the
public eye? The Protestant supporters of Dr. Achilli
have, indeed, succeeded in painting in very forcible co-
lours the known and admitted tendencies of the Church
of Rome; they have shown how awfully the superhuman
power which Rome places in the hands of weak and
fallible mortals may be prostituted and abused. They
have shown that before man shall be permitted to pry
into the heart and probe the conscience of his fellow-
creatures, he ought to be invested with the perfection
as well as the omniscience of the Deity.
Little hes the victim of this frightful power to hope
from the boasted discipline of the Church of Rome.
The confesser shrouds the shame of a brother
priest under the injunction of eternal silence. The
religious orders connive at the delinquencies of a
brother whose eloquence can support, and whose
teaching edify, the Church. If scandal becomes trou-
blesome a change of residence removes all difficulties,
and the Church is willing to let the discipline sleep
which cannot be enforced without casting obloquy on the
priestly character, and exposing the hollowness of the
se'stem on which she builds her pretensions and from
which she derives her riches. The dreaded Inquisition
itself; that name of blood and terror, waxes mild in deal-
ing with merely moral offences, and reserves for heretics
penalties which she is too merciful to impose on the
erring sons of the Church. These things have undoubtedly
been presented to us by this remarkable trial in a tan-
gible shape; but who is there so little versed in the his-
tory of the Romish Church as to require .three days of
indecent details in order to convince him that if weak-
ness has compelled abstinence from her favourite sin of
cruelty, the Church of Rome still permits to her minis-
ters scarcely less licence than of old in the indulgence
of unbridled lust? It was scarcely worth while to pro-
voke such a discussion for the sake of enlightening
those whose knowledge of history was too narrow
toinform them of matters so generally known and so
well established. It is but a vulgar triumph, by stimu-
lating the coarse imaginations of the multitude, to draw
down popular indignation on an antagonist. The ver-
dict in favour of Dr. Achilli, whatever be its effect in
regard to him, leaves this part of the question wholly
untouched. But, while they have been thus successful
in damaging by these most exceptionable means the ob-
ject of their cherished aversion, have the ultra-Pro-
testant supporters of Dr. Achilli done nothing to lower
their own character for fairness and impartiality, to im
pugn their own judgment, and to bringcontempt on their
own proceedings in. the never-ending controversy with
the Church of Rome? How comes it that a man sus-
peeled in the relations of private life, subjected to penal-
ties which would have been but a feeble retribution for
his alleged vices and crimes, has only to escape from
the prisons of the Inquisition, and to inveigh with
sufficient bitterness and Pungency against the head
of a church in which he was educated, in order to con-
ciliate for himself at once the friendship, the respect, and
the affection of the Protestant party in religious and
moral England? flow comes it that to denounce the.
Pope and the Inquisition supersedes the necessity of
inquiry, of caution, and of probation? A man has no-
thing to do but to desert the belief in which he has been
brought up, which experience informs us is seldom per-
manently exchanged for any other, in order to become
a hero among persons who find in the revelations of
the renegade Papist a stimulus to their cariosity which
no other species of theological incentive can supply.
Let his past life have been as suspicious as it may, the
single merit of conversion supersedes the necessity of
inquiry. Such a man is selected, above all others, to
preside over the education of the young and pure,
and to teach a religion, his belief of which
is taken on trust. Thus it comes through the
singular want of judgment and less singular, but more
deplorable, itching for novelty of our pre-eminently
Protestant leaders, that the defence of the doctrines of
the Reformation has been for a moment identified with
the career of a private person who has, at any rate, the
misfortane to be the object of very numerous accusa-
tions- These things the supporters of ••Dr. Achillt have
brought upon themselves, and, if they have wounded the.
Church of Rome, the sword has passed through their
own sides. There is but one party who can gain by
hypocrites
see
tas ne
such a course, those whom Dr. Achilli calls " nega-
tive" Party, to whom Protestant and Catholic are both
alike, to whom religion is mere priestcra.ft, its ministers
per-
sonsthsd thingstsmfourmthmeeTken.s.owSfurcohm
unchristian conflict both parties must arise weakened
and discredited, and that the only gainer from such a
ceremoniesndsmi
le,
struggle will be not the Protestant prosecutor nor the
Roman Catholic 'accuser, but the infidel who sneers and
the blasphemer who scoffs at them both.

(From the Daily News.)
The Achilli case is over. The huge scandal that has
mcrsonwydeddisctuhsesions, is—so f
newspapers,s and
as th
dhas
the Queen's
the topic of so
and
its reports are concerned—concluded? N Bencheversin since this
journal was established have the details of such a trial
found record in its columns, and—acting upon the rule
laid down for the exclusion of such details as that of the
Newman libel—never would such a case have been re-
ported by us, had it not presented an aspect very differ-
ent from those which characterise trials revealing mere
gross but ordinary criminality. In the present case,
however, no rule of exclusion could be permitted to
operate—since it was impossible to separate the charges
ag ;just Dr. Achilli from the animus of those who pro-
moted them. The case has been, in truth, a priestly
quarrel, fought out in a legal court, with debauchery
for the charge, and oath against oath in the investiga-
tion. It has not been the
mere case of a criminal upon
trial. The women who came forward at the instance of
Dr. Newman, as witnesses to declare that the ex-
Dominican priest had polluted them, wore not in court
to ask justice against the alleged debauchee. It was
not an investigation of the damage done to the
Cephalonian by criminal conversation with his wife; nor
was it an inquiry into the fitness or unfitness of Dr.
Achilli as a member of the Church under the shadow of
which he is accused of committing so many sins. The
case had a wider scope altogether, and involved a variety
of interests that rendered it imperative upon every
journalist to give each fact brought forward in evidence,
and every argument both for and against the accused.
In short, the case was one between two rival Churches
—the Church of St. Peter and the Church that had its
foundation at the Reformation. It was a strife between
the priesthood of Rome and the Evangelical Alliance—
between a seceder from Popery and the most active
agents of the Pope. The Papist slandered the Protes-
taut, and this disgusting trial has been the result. As
the trial has proceeded, the interest in the public mind
has grown from day to day, until it has spread—with the
reports of the investigation to every corner of
the land. When the case was first opened, the
statements of the witnesses were so decided,
so circumstantial, and so numerous, that the
feeling ran strongly against Achilli—any second thought
upon the subject being one of astonishment at the amount
of systematic perjury committed, if the various allega-
tions against him were untrue. When the case of
Achilli was opened, upon the cross-examination of the
several witnesses, and subsequently by the examination
of the ex-Dominican himself, that astonishment was not
diminished, however much the balance of belief might
have inclined in his favour. Indeed, long before the seve-
ral advocates had fulfilled their duty, it was perfectly
clear that, on one side or the other, there was an amount
of perjury positively terrible to contemplate. And when
the balance of evidence turned against the Romanists,
an additional and overshadowing horror arose at the
idea of what ramifications the perjury seemed to pass
through—of what men in high places in the Church of
Rome might be implicated in the crime—and with what
deliberate pertinacity the whole web of untruth had
been woven, until it seemed strong enough to entangle
and defile, if not destroy, any reputation, however
pure, against which it might bo turned. Many points
of the trial and of the evidence provoke especial criti-
cism. Sir A. Cockburn warned the jury to be on their
guard against the unconscious bias of any Protestant
prejudices. This was an allowable enough oratorical
flourish—a hint that Dr. Newman and his witnesses
might not meet with absolute fair play at the hands of
professors of an alien creed. Bat, on the other hand,
it might be urged that the Italian witnesses really wete
liable to suspicion on account of the manner in which
they had been ferretted out and brought together. Dr.
Newman sent over emissaries to Italy, who applied to
dignitaries of the Romish Church and inquisitors to aid
them is collecting witnesses to defend their champion,
Dr. Newman, and disable their antagonist, Dr. Achilli
—by blackening his character. This aid was willingly
lent. Many Italians were naturally disposed to help
their priests against one whom they deemed an apos-
tate. In addition, to refuse to bear evidence against

Achilli might, at this moment, expose any Italian
to a charge of favouring him. Lastly, it was naturally
enough stated by Eleanor Giustini or Vallenti that when
first interrogated by her curate as to whether she could
tell anything against Dr. Achilli, she inquired whether
it would be "for her own good?" and was assured it
honour of God." Unduls influence it is clear could be
was " for the honour of the holy Church," " for the
,
brought to bear on the Italian witnesses; undue influence,
if Vallenti can be believed was brought to bear on at
least one of them. These proceedings cannot exactly be
called unprecedented in an English court of justice. The
charges brought against Dr. Achilli, end the means re-
sorted to for obtaining witnesses in support of them, re-
mind one of the trial of queen Caroline, and the green-
bag commission of Milan. The charges were spread over
twenty-six years of Dr. Achilles life; he was called upon
to rebut charges of incontinence with persons not named,
in places and at times not specified. It *as a terrible ordeal
to undergo which no man unsupported by conscious inno-
cence, and even in that case no man not possessed of more
than average courage, could have braved, The parallel
with the case to which we have compared Dr. Achilles
is the stronger from the eutire breaking down of the
evidence so unscrupulously brought together. We have
no space to examine the whole of that evidence in detail,
but, taking it in groups or clatses, its weakness, its ir-
relevance, can easily be indicated. There was a Cathoic
priest adduced to prove the general bad character of
Achilli, and some documentary evidence was offered in
support of his testimony; there were witnesses brought
forward to prove specific offences is Italy, Malta, and
the lonian Islands; there were witnesses produced to
prove t ffecces in England. With regard to the first,
the priest stated that at the time to which he referred he
was a boy of from ten to thirteen years of age. Among
all the priests- and monks of
Viterbo, was there none
who was then of mature years to speak from actual obser-
vation to what the Younker spoke of from hearsay?
He declared that Achilli had • a bad character
at Viterbo, but admitted that he did cot know why.
Of the ex parte memorandum of a policeman offered
as a. substitute for records
alleged to have been de-
stroyed in the revelation, it is for
unnecessary to sPeakt
it was not received. But Mr. uartitgent of that court
, a solicitor, pro-
duced "an official copy of the iudene
(the Inquisition) on Dr. Achilli.,. This '`judgment,"
when examined, turns out to be merely the declaration
of a notary that he had examined the "acts" in the case
of Achilli, and that it appears from them that he bad
confessed himself guilty of incontinence with various
women; and that for these offences end "others re-
corded in the acts," he had submitted himself to the
censure and punishment of the court and had been sus-
pended from the exercise of all priestly functions. The
so-called "judgment" is, in fact, at best, a garbled ex-
tract from the writings in the case of Achilli preserved
in the archives of the Inquisition, When it :
i s remem-
bered that in the proceedings of that court the prisoner
is not confronted with the witnesses against him.--is
with examined in private,—is tortured
interrogations
and his answers recorded
by the Inquisitors in
their own words,—even a full and certified COPY'
of the whole written proceedings and the judg-
ment pronounced would be very equivocal testimony;
but extracts of isolated sentences apart from the
context, that might have thrown a different light on
them, interspersed with the remarks of the extractor, are
utterly worthless. They may be perverted by the mis-
takes of the excerptor, even on the assumption that ho
made them in perfect good faith. ens for the females
who swore to Achilles misconduct with them, Mt". Vallenti, for a woman in her rank of life,
showed a
most suspicious familiarity with the etiquette of the con-
fessional. To one confessor she merely said she bad
sinned with an ecclesiastic, without mentioning his name,
because that is not customary; to
named
another she
Achilli lest he should suspect other and innocent persons.
The instruction of a more instructed, war,'
e and expe-
rienced mind is here palpable. The other female, and
her mother, swore that the father and mother had
a
accosted Achilli while making one of procession, which
they would not have been allowed to do, The daughter,
by way of making her story more pathetic, said her rather
had died of grief on account of her seduction—but of
this the mother knew nothing! These witnesses, one of
whom was exhorts d to give her evidence " for the ho-
nour of the- Church," " for the honour of God,,,
have
been living for weeks together, talking over the evidence
they were to give. Bat this is as nothing compared
with the utter failure of the charge respectina, a
tailor's
wife at Corfu. The tailor himself Ras brought to this
country, but made a precipitate retreat, and refused to
return, when he knew that the Laepector-General of
Police in the lonian Islands was here. In lieu of him
was produced one witness, who swore that he had seen
from a.distance a person of Achilles stature leave the
woman's door at night, and another of bad character
who swore that he bad seen the husband seize Achilli,
though he confessed he had never seen Achilli before or
since, and cons( quently could not know him It is
strong corroboration of Acbilli's truthfulness that he
frankly admitted the incident, the proof of which had
so signally failed, and produced the woman to allow of her
being cross-questioned. Of Mr. Reynolds, who spoke to an
alleged offence at Zente, it is enough to sa—
y that he is
hostile to Dr. Achilli, who rebuked him
for intem-
perance—that he admits he has varied in the reasons he
has at different times assigned for suspecting Achilli—
that in the witness-box be betrayed his state of mind
by assuming what he was afterwards obliged to admit
he did not know—and that there are contradictions
between his own evidence and that of his servant. As
to the witnesses brought forward to prove criminality
in England, their characters, as described by themselves,
would be enough to deprive them of credit. And all
of them admitted that they had been silent in cir-
cumstances when it is scarcely credible they could
have abstained from making the charges now pre-
ferred—and all of them speak under the influence of
anger. These and all other points of the case were
doubtless fully considered by the jury who—after the
three days' investigation had closed—deliberated amongst
themselves for between two and three hours before
giving their verdict in favour of Dr. Achilli. And what
does that verdict do? It shows to the fullest extent
that Father Newman did indeed slide from. the altitude
of Christian faith to the de
pths of unworthy slander.
It shows that his zeal for his
new faith tempted him to
leave logic, and argument, and learning—the proper
weapons for his use—to take up a series of unworthy
and slanderous allegations ready at hand in the pages of
a Romish review, in which they had been placed by an
anonymous but scarcely unknown writer. But the ver-
dict does more. It confirms the dark suspicions that
began to accumulate when
the Italian women came,
one after another, into
the witness-box to swear
away the reputation of
Achilli. Indeed, imagi-
nation is positively r
Atetigued in the attempt
to follow out those
ramifications of criminality
suggested by the idea that the Whole case against Achilli
mutt be one vast conspiracy--defeated in an English
I
court of justice, but having • over half
its organization
Italy. Wholesale perjury hasp it is clear, been com-
mitted. What share had the original author of the
slanders in the concoction of this
cagse tor their defence;
what share had Father Newman.
in the procuring of
thesewitnesses, whoseevidence has been upset; whataime
had the Romish priestly dance has
in Italy in the build-
ing up of the case thrown into th dust by the verdict
e
of last night? All these
tes thousands aid
now ask, and there is little doubt bitthe neral answer
will be one little favourable to anyt fthethe reputations
involved. Meanwhile wo man .o,
a I ride ourselves
upon the full investigation that t, ae IT p
Ye
has met in our
open court—so unlike the seer ile
eribunal of the Inqui-
sition before which Dr. Achilli had formerly to stand.

dedreturn..._
NAVAL IN 1
r-2-E-LIAGENCE.
PORTSMOUTH, JUNE 24. 1-1,
----14,3 Edinburgh, 56, screw gunnery ship, Captain Hewlett
good trial cruise at sea, returned(acting), having had a
to Spithead this morn-
ing and into harbour to complete h
psaroilc,enend -or outfit this evening.
good,ns all that could be
has in this proved herself a g under steam. She
48
far as the Land's-end,
gOoni
n, hge r
downcr cruise sue
nsdheer
seaboat, both under
desired in a ship of her character.
steam and sail, and is reported
n beating
Channel she is reported to have
worked
well and stdowneered
easy; and when under steam, to ha
of between eight and nine knots e averaged a speed
hour. When out
her crew were well exercised at Cheeregrat gun drill, firing
at an unmoored target, sailing round . 1
& Altogether
it,
this experimental sea-going gunnery ship is reported of
most satisfactorily.
The a
to her moorinpgsus,to-day ed Gram 50, afrigate, has been taken
.dv -ac
The Lively naval lighter sailed to.day, with stores for
Rear-Admiral Corry's squadron at qt,eonstown.
The Boat Brigade of the Portsm
-ntlth Dockyard talion has been exercised last night
and the previous
Bat-
night
outside the harbour's mouth i
'll firing blank cart-
ridge from their . bow guns, under the command of
Lieutenant-Colonel Davis (master attend of the Royal
Clarence Victualling Establishment), nod
themselves of their several duties with they acquitted
to their officers. Last night Captain touch satisfaction
ton,
A. A. Hamil-
ton, second secretary to the Admiralty, accompanied
Colonel Davis in his gig to see the evolutions of the bri-
gade, with which he expressed himself mooh
pleased.
PLYMOUTH, THURSDAY.—Tbe Black t,
ralty steam-
yacht, with Sir Baldwin walker,-,,agla Admi-
Surveyor
of the Navy, Mr. Stafford, Secretary to the Admiralty,
and Mr. Grant, arrived from Portsmouth on
Tuesday. The crew of her Majesty's steam-vessel Buzzard,
Commander Debbie, were paid advance . on Tuesday, and
she sailed yesterday for the West India and
North Ame-
rican station.
The frigate Trincomalee, 24, w..
---- "rnreissioned yes-
ofterday by Captain Wallace Houston, with a onropiemsnt
240 men.
.. -

OisatneaHma-trednWdieerk,e,air:::shheri:e
rtigo.hdtaeyd
The Tortoise lighter sails to-day, with 16
work on the Windsor Castle, at Pembroke,
theiSrtzatyPdooiwnnt.
caulkers, to
off the port last evening, bound up Channel. Bombay, was
froTTmhheePoErStapssrmtigol:utthldyi; with supernumeraries.
Encounter,
steamingthe Highflyer,westw
westward,
thirtytl s s,
mthis
Ie Arrogant,
east aoufd
CThhaeynnaerle. ordered to call at port on

Nl°afrylebone Court-
appointed
gelnents for se-
e, placein
ier
tt. ooi
Ann
c. Wednesdayaror Daniellyf oo t in the chair,
been adopted in
expense.mittee
The
the influentialn evening,ecee necessary seet yto the
esar a n
as a reflec-
li tookous
had been
curing the re-election of Sir Benjamin Hall art., and Lord
Dudley Stuart, and it was unanimously determined to return
Chairmantt hhee Hon.case o Baronet atsariotrendeFtraa
thatnn dc
isstuhßeehuNradoebtlte
proceedingi Lord olr
8d 0 faanodfd i t w
atilolonweodn
to
othliee
dcooromstaintutefnocrifeosrttyhayteasurec.h a principle
A DELICATE SUREBISE.—A lady whose notions of
propriety would not permit her to visit the theatre to see
Lola Montes on the stage, determined, nevertheless, to gratify
her curiosity. The danscuse lodged at the hotel where the
lady boarded, and when Lola returned from the theatre, the
latter walked softly to the door and peeped in through the
crack. There, to be sure, was the lioness, seated at the
table to a cozy supper, her companion being the peeping
Iltdfo own hasbaud.—Boston Gazette.

BRITISH ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH COM-
PANY- BILL.
Thrown out upon the ground that "Standing
Order No. 176 of the House of Lords" was applicable,
and had not been complied with, and ought not to be
dispensed with.

The following is a copy ot a memorial about to
be presented to the Prime Minister from the bankers,
merchants, brokers, shipowners, and others of the
large cities, manufacturing and seaport towns of
England, Scotland, and Ireland.

Inserted by order,
GEORGE SAWARD, Sec.
London, Jane 24, 1852.

THE BUMBLE MEMORIAL OF BANKERS, MERCHANTS,
SHIPOWNERS, MANUFACTURERS, AND OTHERS, OF THE
TOWN AND PORT OF LIVERPOOL,
TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DERBY,
PRIME MINISTER, &C.
Sheweth—That your memorialists in particular, and
the public in general, have lately sustained a great iejury
in the loss of the British Eiectric Telegraph Company's
Bill, under circumstances so wholly unprecedented, as to
point to the absolute necessity of some constitutional
measures being adopted to insure for the public an assi-
milation of those technical regulations of the two Houses
of Parliament professedly formed for the protection of
the public, and known as the Standing Orders.
That wnile your memorialists fully admit the consti-
tutional and practical importance of separate inquiries
being made in each House of Parliament into the merits
of every Bill, they earnestly submit that common justice
and common sense alike imperatively require either that
ono inquiry in lintine as to matters of torus should suffice,
or that the two inquiries as to matters of form should, by
arrangement between the two Houses of Parliament, take
place in the outset of every Bill.
That the contrary practice often entails the following
state of things:—
A Bill is intreeiticed into the House of Commons.
Tile Standing Orders are inquired into for days
together before the examiners, who find them to
have been complied with.
Leave is therefore given to introduce the Bill.
The Bill is introduced accordingly.
It is read a second time, and large House fees in-
curred.
It goes before a Select Committee, where many
thousand pounds, great industry, and much time are
spent in establishing its merits.
The Select Committee reports favourably.
The report is considered.
The Bill is read a third time, and then sent to the
Lords.
Then commences the most grievous anxiety on the
part of the promoters, not in respect of the merits of
the measure, for all admit that it is just enough that
a review of the merits (being in the nature of an
appeal) should take place.
But all this anxiety arises from the revival of the
points of mere form with which all this costly process
first began, viz., Standing Orders :
In vain do the provincial public express their incredu-
lity that a measure thus far fostered by so much money,
labour, and care, can possibly be allowed. to be wrecked
in half an hour by the putting upon pure forms a con-
struction differing from that which had in the outset
with infinite pains been put upon the same forms ; or
by the sudden leap into life of a standing order long
since believed and understood to be dead, and which had
passed into desuetude for more than 21 years.
The work of months of labour is extinguished, the
parties have practically no appeal, and they go home to
complain bitterly that they have suffered in a manner
which no foresight could have guarded against, but
which, nevertheless, a slight amount of co-operation and
courteous understanding elsewhere might have wholly
prevented.
They have not the comfort of feeling that this Bill
has fallen in a fight on merits, but as it were in an un-
worthy and obscure skirmish, which they would have
avoided if they could, or they feel it to have been thrown
into a mediaeval oubliette, the existence of which they
could scarcely bring themselves to believe.
That such has been the fate of one of the most im
portant, useful, and necessary measures of the presete
year.

That your memorialists allude to the British Electric
Telegraph Company's Bill, which, having been for four-
teen days investigated before a Select Committee of the
House of Commons, was unanimously approved of by
that Committee, and which was carried by a majority of
150 on the second reading.
That the, following matters were, among others,
proved before that Committee:—
That the old Electric Telegraph Company had
succeeded in drawing a hitherto impassable barrier
or cordon around the metropolis, so that no electric
communication can reach or leap) London by rail-
way but by tho telegraphs of the old company
only. _

That the old company have effected that state of
things by coercing or by inducing, for valuable con-
sideration, railway companies to exclude the tele-
graph of other companies from railways having
termini in London.
The chairman of the Great Northern Railway
Company gave evidence before the Committee of
such coercion having been effectually practised upon
that reluctant company.
That the chairman of the Old Electric Telegraph
Company has a private signal, known as " A. K.,"
and that the moment any message with that signal
is sent to any of such Company's Telegraphic
Stations, all other business is instantly put aside and
precedence given to " A. K.". before all messages,
even those of her Majesty's Government, or of the
Royal Family.
That.the chairman of the Old Electric Telegraph
Company has the telegraph wires carried into his
own private house.
That the public are highly dissatisfied with the
present mode of conducting the electric telegraph
communications to and from the metropolis, and
earnestly desired, and by very numerous petitions
to both Houses of Parliament, prayed (though
prayed in vain) for the safe passage through Par-
liament of the British Electric Telegraph Company's
Bill.
That your memorialists, in speaking on a public sub-
ject, are fairly entitled, without imputing any motives,
or desiring, or in the slightest degree intending to sug-
gest or insinuate anything unworthy; to say that in this
great commercial country, where knowledge is indeed
power, and where the first intelligence upon public
matters of importance is invaluable, and may be indeed
a source of untold wealth, these gigantic powers ought
not to remain as at present in the sole keeping of the
old Electric Telegraph Company, but ought to be at the
equal service of the public.
That the Select Committee were satisfied that the
British,Electrie Telegraph Company's Bill would have
remedied these public evils by accomplishing the follow-
ing objects:—

1. A compulsory power (subject in the case of
each railway both to the veto and to the regulations
to be made by the Board of Trade) to take tele-
graphs along the railways so as to reach the me-
tropolis.
2. Limited liability (as to future matters), with-
out which it was clearly proved by most eminent
witnesses to the Select Committee that no company
could raise the capital, from time to time required
to carry on the business of the public, and to erect
telegraphs for the use of the Government, especially
in the taco of the gigantic status and monopoly ob-
tained by the old Electric Telegraph Company by
the means before mentioned.
That this most important Bill came under the fullest
consideration of the Government, and passed the House
of Commons amidst the good wishes and congratulations
of the public, and especially of that portion of the pub-
lic which is suffering so much from the present system,
and which knows how to appreciate the inestimable
value of the progress and development of one of the
greatest boons which a beneficent Providence has of late
years given to mankind.
That, on the suggestion of the old Electric Telegraph
Company and their allies, this important measure has
been treated as deserving to be thrown out, because, in
pursuance of a Standing Order (No. 176), the British
Electric Telegraph Company had not deposited in the
Bank of England the enormous sum of 225,0001., being
three-fourths of the maximum amount contemplated to
be raised under the powers of the Bill from time to time,
as the extension of telegraphs might be required, which
sum, under the circumstances above detailed, it is alto-
gether unnecessary for your memorialists to say the
company could not raise and deposit and the raising of
which sum, moreover, in the first instance would be a
most extravagant and useless proceeding, inasmuch as
the very nature of these telegraphic works is their gra-
dual extension as exigencies from time to time arise.
That your memorialists desire to make every state-
ment within the strictest bounds of accuracy, and, there-
fore, they respectfully beg that careful inquiry may be
made into a statement which they have reason to be-
lieve, viz., that such Standing Order had slept in desue-
tude for about twenty-one years, until the 21st of June,
1552—in fact, during a time sufficiently long for a new
generation to be born and to grow up.
That the said Standing Order was made so long ago as
the 2d of June, 1824, to meet the bubble companies,
which were the offspring of the then monetary excite-
ment, and is opposed to the whole current of the modern
amended Standing Orders relating to public works; and,
as an evidence thereof, your memorialists state the
striking fact that it applies just as much to railways,
water-works, gas-works, &c,, as it can by any ingenuity
be made to apply to electric telegraphs; and that, (had
it not happily fallen into desuetude) its application
would as effectually have prevented the existence at this
moment of almost every railway, &c., in the kingdom,
as ,its recent application seems unhappily but too
likely to keep this country behind all other countries
in the use and spread of the electric telegraph.
That in the case of several public works analagous to
electric telegraphs, not even a subscription contract is re-
quired by the Standing Orders, and in the case of no
other public work whatsoever do the Standing Orders of
either House of Parliament require more on that head
than the following:-
1. A subscription contract to the extent of three.
fourths of the estimates.
2. One-tenth only of the three-fourths so subs
scribed to be deposited in the Bank,
And yet, in consequence of this revival of a Stand-
ing Order passed many years before electric telegraphs
were known, end when railways themselves were only
just beginning their existence, it will be quite impossible
for an electric telegraph company to obtain the same
footing as other companies of vastly less importance,
unless such Electric Telegraph Company can do what no
other company ever could do, viz.—fiud and actually
deposit three-fourths of its capital as a condition, pre-
cedent to getting its Act giving it incorporation like
railway, gas, and other like companies.
That the evile complained of ill the numerous peti-