The Sun.
London, England, 1852-06-16 00:00:00

happily characterises some of the very best of French-
men. Cowardice, in the ordinary sense of the term, is
perhaps not imputable to Louis Napoleon; hut there
must have been a deplorable lack cf civil courage in the
man who employed the first moment of security to:make
so glaring an admission of the fours with which the per-
fectly legitimat, and not very dangerous, opposition of
a Bourbon Prince had inspired him. Hypocrisy must
have framed or adopted the pretext by which that deed
of unmanly revenge was sought to be veiled. Cynical
contempt of prescriptive right was betrayed by the very
imagining of such a method of retaliation; and ser-
vility to the judgment of the lowest populace shone
'n every line of the clauses which distributed the
possessions of the dead King among the con-
ventional
re objects of charity and compassion.
revelation of such qualities in the principal author of
the recent events was a commentary on the events them-
selves.osin
p g itself blest in a Constitution which heel been
manufactured bybeing such hands, and to the degradation of
governed by
to lend ttictuseive.s taloa servie few who could be brought
to
wrong.. It at once aparticipation in 51.
Pretences b 37 which becameits alive to the emptiness ?t the
of government had ben cnmplielty in the change
obtained. It
grown seetvical as to the had already
imputations which fix:-.3 the
entire blame of the revolutie.
Assembly, when the letters of on
the
ciere came to fasten the perverseness of the
guilt
f.Chatiganiier and Lamor-
to render even the last unfortunate propel. head, and
ebf,orni which f..ee in-
stitutions had assumed attractive contrast with the
black treachery by which they weredcl'
the 071eans decree it is probable that tehstr°3T But for
never have been written, and it is certainl that the:, would
no .etters, woud
have met with no general credence,
to be published, the Government merely made
them
take lit supposing that the state of Opinion was tue
suchmi As
it undoubtedly would have been if no violatiosnof
simplest maxims of morality had been the perpetrated to
change it.

COMMITTEE on the CASE of MR. O'CONNOR.
Yesterday, the Committee appointed to inquire into
the matter of the petition of Mies O'Connor, praying
that Mr. Feargus O'Connor may be liberated and con-
fided to the custody of his friends, met at four o'clock,
in Committee-room No. 13. Preeent—Mr. Walpole
(chairman), Mr. M. Mines, Mr. V. Smith, Mr. Miles,
Mr. M. J. O'Connell, the O'Gorman Mahon, and others.
Dr. Tweedie and Dr. Lawrence, who have been in daily
attendance on the unfortunate gentleman during his
confinement, were examined on the subject-matter of the
petition. Subsequently. Miss O'Connor, who is a petite
and rather prepossessing person, with the O'Connor
caste of countenance subdued into the delicacy of female
feature, was examined, and requested permission of the
Committee to be allowed an interview with her brother.
The Committee deliberated, and asked the advice of
Dr. Tweedie, who expressed himself adverse; but
on Miss O'Connor becoming importunate, her re-
quest was acceded to; and Mr. O'Connor having
been conducted from the " tower " down stairs,
she proceeded to see him, accompanied by Captain
Gossett, the Assistant-Sergeant-at-Arms, Mr. Bell,
M.P., D. Tweedie, and two of the messengers. Here
they met Mr. O'Connor, with two messengers and two
sergeants of police, quietly promenading along the well-
known lengthy corridor of the Committee-rooms of the
House of Common', the doors at the entrance from the
grand staircase baying first been securely closed. Miss
O'Connor appeared much affected, and the unfortunate
gentleman continued to walk up and down with his left
arm cast carelessly behind his sister. On arriving at
the doors that had been locked he called out to the
police, through the glass panels on the other side, " Open
this, open this," at the same time trying to undo the
doors; but on being told by Captain Gossett it could not
be allowed, he returned quietly, and continued talking to
his sister, No remarkable change, has taken place in Mr.
O'Connor, either for better or worse, during the last few
days. He still indulges in rapid, rambling, aberrations,
reciting to his attendants snatches of what he states to
be his own poetical compositions, uttering now and then
an eloye on the late Sir Robert Peel, abruptly broken
off' to descant on the disasters of an old woman and her
'pig in the bogs of Ballinhassig—of a stud of some
twenty long-tailed black horses his brother kept in Ire-
land, all whimsically interwoven by such canticles as
are heard at the Coal Hole, or by the recital of a litany,
interlarded with tears, on tho failure of the unfortunate
land scheme. A difficult question has presented itself to
the Committee as to what it will be their duty to do, or
rather what jurisdiction they can have in the matter,
the case being without precedent on the journals of the
House. It appears, however, to be th© impression that
although Mr. O'Connor is in imprisonment for contempt
of the House and disorderly conduct, yet that the proper
course will be to discharge him and assign him to the
care of his friends or Hawed!, from which asylum Dr.
Conolly visited him yesterday, and was understood to be
of opinion that Mr. O'Connor's insanity is only symp-
tomatic or incipient, and that with attention, and in a
short time, he may be restored to a state of mental con-
valescence. His nephew visited him yesterday, and the
interview is stated to have been similarly affecting to that
with his sister.