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

BIRTHS IN THE WEEK.

Males ...
Females ...

... 814
... 793

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

GIMLIBILITIN—We were shown a circular, which
has been very extensively disseminated in the provinces.
It fixplains (with patterns of the article produceds a pre.
tended patent for the manufacture of a fabric 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 goad round
income. "Subscribers," we quote the precise word of the
printed bait, "will, for every ss. they invest, realize from
751. to 3001. sterling per annum !"—to be paid, it is politely
stated in another part of the prospectus, quarterly. Now,
rational people will say that the wild extravagance of such
a promise, exceeding all possible gullibility, would be its own defeat. The sain rational people, however, will be (as they
sometimes are) in error. Credulity bus no bounds. It is a fact that since the issue of that golden circular, the Post office
authorities have paid to its concuctor—not hundreds, but
thousands of
.pounds. Poit•Gflice orders have poured in from
believers in :impossible profit at such a rate that 3001. were
banded over to the succe4sful schemer in the course of one
single week.—Dickens's Household Words.
Two fires occurrfd in London
yesterday, one at a
lucifer-match manufactory La
in Bethnal-green,
whichw"th
de-
stroyed ; and the other at a floor-cloth factory in Lambeth,
which was considerably
dawned. The origin of both fires
way accidental.

1, 1050.

11 a; ./ 'E.
(From 019 Spectator.)
The tattual posttiou of the ketch:re of parties is fell of
vain-shin iratsuction, It is a p'eit.ian et' flisteepsiternen,:
and trouble. Teltire Lord Dertee, J Ressell L. re
Aletrdeee, or tee Duke o'' Ne wceet le. oti:i Mr- C'=' den, as
chiefs of the parties into which the country is divided net;
one of the lour can be either setisfied with the present or
hopeful as regard* the future. Ot, the contrary, every
one of them is in a and witheie,ens clear preepeta
of getting out of it. Aed, whet is of mere inesee once,
because it centains the mural of the le:son, s eel. case )a
one of retrioutive justice; the thsconifer, teetered beteg
in the nature of a punishment justly incurred oy the 6ut•
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 fur 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
Russell's 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 he 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: be 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 have avoided it altogether but for Lord
John Russell's parting advice to the Quer... 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. He 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 tied 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 years; 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 throug 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 most ins ffieient
and unpopular of his colleagues, and ceiling to his
assistance such Whigs as Lord Ctarendou, sod such
former colleagues of Sir Robert Peel the Duke of
Newcastle, Mr. Gladstone, and Sir James Graham.
But no; his inordinate but feeble self-sufficiency,
combined with his belief in the indefeastl:ee right of
certain Whig families to govern, could riot stomach the
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 tor
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 fur
otherwise seeking to embarrass the Government
of which he 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 io 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 what the country at large has needed
and desired for a long while is statesmanlike purpose in
the leaders of parties; of any partl , it may be said; for the
old party diatinctions 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 he 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 bare 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, bad lately taken ,a more
distinct line of his own, a course more . 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 is clear view of the public exigencies, and had
made it known by actively sharing in the business of Par-
liament, the Qaee,,, it is very likely, would not have taken
Lird John Russell's advice about bending for Lord Derby.
In the politics of a tree 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
issues, and the prospect of a new Parliament without,
fixed ideas, led by a Govefeelrnmentguilty
ef o
mischief
pretenders
ge
neglected
tei
dt
hh
aco,
vpu
e.t
paorptoulniciydesthoetyacultiounst
averted.nThe chester gentlemen are out e
tsotctigtemikertitn.ili Tohcoaugguhebee
acti-
vity,t e y havethei
their
not i beenviews
o
f deficientna national
ai
in a
policy
generalities suited only to the platform. They
enjoy a triumph in seeing Lord Derby
swallow IT'raye trade ; but when that spectacle shall be over, the;
will have no function or distinctive character. In-
deed, they greatly resemble the Protectionist
hdiasvaiptipgeabruito one
from o
i da a and,
so that,
in
is onthe point of
party in
our politics; oneolitics; e
p
months, they will probably break u
through differences
two or three
of opinion on other subjects. The
re would have been
just the. same prospect for the DerbY ites 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 VG 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 olguilty 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 ho was bound to do his utmost,
Unob-
served, therefore, he at once whipt behind the dock, and
putting his hands to the sides of his mouth, tirend tbo-
the prisoner as loud as prudence would permit—
don't you cry, you fool! Be quick—you'll Save s mo.ntraYt
mleaosvteld"
alsluesctuutluper
,itf,tnwutheodfbaetfeolyrettohuiks
treshi standing
n hint, rubbed
d aosvuel Is-
oeoymese with his huoisnskonoufektlhees,daegndractioerc,i,alsi
moment. seemed
be
stood. Thedodge answered.
ship) that the sense of shame situation in w
feel will
prevent you from appearing again in suchyo a situation in
a court of justice
olifisceodrrou,owtihuine,hinistthisat yuoutbe
much, and in Wh. thrustu(
now feel
Lord-
that hope lam induced to pass
upon you a ln
sentence than I should other-
lender month." y'
formed,space of one ca-
formed, i
-5 a most hardened rascal.—
ifmowrperisoned in the House
were afterwards in•
Devizes Gazette.

,TIIE COST OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
According to Mr.
Brayley, in " Britton's Public
Buildings of London," which contains a plan avid five
views of the structure, full halt a million of money was
J'The whole of
hi ~
Ultimately expended upon Somerset House, and it was
then left unfinis _ •
may mention, have • have recently, turned up, and will probably
for publication. That Chambers was not
judgment as to the probable cost of
ithetaninsohmise architects of modern days, is proved
the circumstance that, in a report presented by him
bmta
hyffo: r afford
d workcomr ra
to the House of Commons, he said he thought, though
there were difficulties which prev•eqed accurate compute-
tion, that ;he cost certainly would not exceed 250,000/.
Whle do we now care whether it cost a quarter of a
million or half a million ; and how mho,. do, s th,-,
que.dion t,ffi,ct the opinion we form ef the building ;aid
i,s designer? Nothing, Nor will any ark a century
hence, when contemplating some of the huildinvi " run
up" in our time (it they !rt,t 150 long) whrit these
cost, or find in the small uutlsy, if they should ..,k,,k, any
reason for withholding condemnation. Prudence "and
circumstances must, of course, regulate expenditure. If
we must have a building for a particular purpose, and
have only 4 certuiu emu of money, the building niusl