The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-13 00:00:00

and powerful nations, as well as weak ones,

and that he trusted this country would never

sully its high reputation by yielding to the strong

what it denied to the weak. Such a reproof, to
the timorous and dishonourable spirit which Earl
RUSSELL has infused into our officials, high and
low, was well-timed, and only too richly deserved.

Again, the Chief Baron refused to allow the ques-
tion of the maritime interest of this country to be
mixed with the affair. Such a coarse, he said, would

degrade the discusion, while the conclusions acted
upon might very possibly prove fallacious. The
point at issue, as he clearly demonstrated, was
whether or no the building of a ship of war for a
foreign power was an infringement of the Foreign
Enlistment Act, and from this plain and
concise statement of the case, he refused

to vary. " They were not to be guided by what
eminent statesmen had said, nor by what jurists
had writted upon international law ; they wanted
not the decision of foreign courts to see whether
the case was within the statute. No decisions of
foreign courts ought to induce them to declare if
the act committed was not within the words of the
statute, that the scope, object, and spirit of the act

included the case before them, although it might
not be clearly expressed by the Legislature." But
if foreign precedents were to be admitted, his Lord-
ship showed, on the authority of Mr. JEFFERSON,
that America► herself would furnish arguments in
defence of such ships. That eminent American, in
arguing on the right of the citizens to ex-

port arms, said that such trades were the
occupation and livelihood of some, and that to

suppress their callings on account of a distant
war with America would be unreasonable and
uncalled for. "It would be hard in prin-
ciple and impossible in practice." Bat although
these observations referred to arms, yet the same
speaker raised no objections to the supply of ships
of war, although he disapproved of the practice of
equipping and manning such vessels in their ports
to cruise as belligerents. To such lengths as this
our English shipbuilders have never gone, and
probably never desire to go; but it is scarcely neces-
sary that they should be so much more tender over
the interests of the Americans than they are of
Europeans. Sach, then, were the principal points
on which the Lord Chief Baron based his very able
and sensible conclusions. The clause, he admitted,
was by no means free from doubt and difficulty ;
but so long as it does not specify a particular act as
illegal, our authorities are bound to give the accused
the benefit of the exemption, and let the vessel go
free. That this decision will give general satisfac-
tion, we cannot doubt, even although the Attor-
ney-General's intimation of a farther appeal prevents
the defendants from reaping the full benefit. It
is satisfactory, after all the vacillation, the submis-
sion, the weak and hesitating policy which has
dictated our actions of late years—after the ingeni-
ous sophistries which have been put forward to
reason us out of old firm independence and high
principle—to find an English judge of character
and position disdaining to suffer such unworthy
motives to influence his decisions, and acting in the
spirit of those sturdy old barons who were made of
sterner stuff than the terrorists of the present day,
when they issued their irrevocable fiat, " Nolumus
leges Anglice mutari." Even so our English judge
stands up for his country's laws, refusing, however
much they may need amendment or elision, to con-
form them to the insolent demands of quondam
allies, to accept the interpretation put upon them
by unwarrantable assumption on the one hand and
unworthy submissioti on the other.

Great steps have been made Curing the last ha

century in many orders of science. By the unwearied
perseverance of our astronomer navigation has been
rendered comparatively safe and certain. The study
of the theory of cyclones enables the masters of ships
on the wide ocean to avoid their vortex, and so pass
them harmless. Admiral FITZROY'S barometer
gives warning of approaching danger. Medical
science has likewise made great progress, valuable
remedies for dangerous diseases have been discovered,
and by the aid of chemistry, in post mortem exami-
nations, the old superstition, that-the dead can con-
vict their murderers, has been practically attested.
While many other discoveries or inventions for the
common benefit have come to light, the most extra-
ordinary, and, at the same time perplexing and
dangerous, is the theory regarding lunacy lately
propounded by many medical men, including some
of the leading members of the profession. Accord-
ing to this theory, where motive is wanting for the
perpetration of a crime, insanity is substituted, or,
more exactly speaking, monomania. While this
doctrine was applied to shoplifting by females re-
spectably connected, nobody cared much about it,
and the practice of procuring goods in this economi-
cal fashion might have become general, but that an
obtuse magistracy took it into their heads to admi-
nister a prescription of their own, rather than
that of the doctors, and it was soon found that a
few months' incarceration did more to check the
disease than ever Dr. FORBES WINSLOW'S accom-
plishments. The late cold-blooded murder com-
mitted in Derbyshire, by GEORGE VICTOR
TOWNLEY, upon a young girl, called forth the just
indignation of the community at large. The crime
was aggravated by the fact that the perpetrator of
the dastardly deed was a man of education, and had
up to the period of the murder mixed in the best
society. The facts of the case are too notorious to
need any further comment. In due course he was
arraigned, found guilty, and doomed to die. A
considerable time elapsed between the commission
of the crime, and the trial of the criminal, and
during this period it was discovered that his grand-
mother's sister had been of unsound mind, and on
the strength of this the plea of insanity was set up
in his defence. The jury were not, however, to be
convinced that a meditated and calmly devised
murder was to be excused on such an inference,
and the judge concurred in the verdict. After the
conviction, however, Dr. FORBES WINSLOW made
himself conspicuous in supporting the plea of in-
sanity, and by dint of examination, by lunacy
commissions, and justices of the peace, the possible
remorse for his crime, and the certain dread of an
ignominious death, seemed for a time at least to
have shiaken the intellect of a young man whose
mental qualifications appear to have been
very bright. On the strength of this, Sir
GEORGE GREY, acting per force, according to a
legal statute, advised her MAJESTY to avail herself
of het Royal prerogative and grant a reprieve to
the criminal. Before the true state of the case
became known, considerable dissatisfaction was
expressed by the public at what was thought to be
an unwarranted extension of mercy to tue perpe-
trator of a cruel, deliberate, and most cowardly
murder on a confiding, helpless girl. While yet
public indignation was rife, and the true facts of
the case but partly known, the Home Secretary
fanned the smouldering embers of discontent into
flame, by again running counter to public opinion,
which imperatively demanded justice. In the case
of TOWNLEY, we believe that Sir G. GREY aced
with justice. In the case of SAMUEL WRIGUT, he
was accessory to what almost amounts to a judicial
murder. Whereas in the case of the Derbyshire
miscreant, months elapsed between the perpetration
of the crime and the day fixed for the execution)
while he had the advantage of able muff to des