The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-06 00:00:00

gunietit Of the prosecution virtually amounted to
this: Mrs. Day vvas poisoned by arsenic. If the
pie had contained arsenic the probable symptoms
would have been identical with those x h ited,

Tl-;;;;fore the pie did contain arsenic. Somebody
must hate put it in; and that somebody could be
nobody else but the prisoner. The counsel for the
prisoner very wisely adopted a purely negative line
of defence. He defied the prosecution to prove
positively that there was any arsenic in the pie at
all, or if there was, that the prisoner put it there.
The exhaustive process on which the prosecution
relied was utterly incomplete, and the jury acquitted
the prisoner almost without hesitation. That they
they did so, however, was due, we suspect, to the
admirable summing up of the Lord Chief Justice.
The evidence on which Constance Wilson was
hanged was hardly more satisfactory than that on
which Sturt was acquitted. Very little doubt can
be entertained of the guilt of that wretched woman,
and there can be small question that she had mur-
dered many persons. But there was absolutely no
evidence that the person whom she was tried for
poisoning had died by poison at all. If we are ever
to have the punishment of death, never was there a
woman who, as far as can be judged, deserved
hanging more justly than Mrs. Wilson ; yet, for all
that, she was sentenced with doubtful justice, and a
very dangerous system of a priors evidence was ad-
mitted amongst the precedents of our English law.
This system happily has received a severe blow at
the Lewes Assizes. It was not enough, as Sir A.
Cockburn remarked with truth, to prove that Sturt's
guilt was the most probable solution of the problem
of Mrs. Day's death ; it was essential to establish
furtt er that no other solution was possible. This,
we believe, is sound law ; at any rate, it is common

sense.
LONDON REVIEW.—A ragged church is a pecu-
liar and characteristic institution. To a common
mind it seems a repellant rather than attractive
name. It appears like an attempt to destroy that
beautiful feature so well defined in the words, "the

rich and poor meet together, and the Lord is the
maker of them all." But a thorough consideration
of the facts will modify this fear, and vindicate the
expediency, at least, of such an experiment. There
is a class of our fellow-creatures so steeped in vice
and dirt, that it is impossible to endure their pro-
miscuous mixing with an ordinary congregation.
This is not tr ere affectation. h is painfully real.
_ _

The case, therefore, resolved itself into this : Either
you must insist on their weekly baptism in hot
water, with plenty of soap, on the Sunday morning,

and furnish them with c can shirts and trousers and

petticoats, which they would to a certainty pawn
or sell for gin on the Monday, or you must localize
them in some part of the parish church or other place
of congregation, within restrictive and impassable
barriers. Now it does seem, to our mind, much less

objectionable and less annoying to their amour
propre, to give them a place of worship entirely
their own, into which they may statedly come, and
neither take nar give offence. It must never be
forgotten, in any discussion of the merits of this
question, that ragged churchmen are not decent
labourers or mechanics, or what is called the work-
ing classes. They are tramps, beggars, or people of
nameless condition, wrecks of a life of drunkenness
and vice, who, if invited and welcomed, will not
enter a regular place of worship. They form a caste,
as plainly marked as ii they were a distinct race
from that of the English people. An experiment of
this kind has been carried on for 10 years in a place
called Brewer's-court, Wild-street, Drury-lane, the
centre of a district more degraded, more destitute,and
more demoralised than is to be found in any of the
eastern districts of London. Every Sunday morning,
at 11 o'clock, 200 miserable-looking specimens of the
human family assemble in the ragged church there,
famished, ill-clad, and dirty, beyond the power of
description. The psalmody with whirl the service
begins is very imperfect ; the attitude ana aspect of
the worshippers, at first sight, are anything but
encouraging. Some grown lads did not under-
stand at first whether they were to kneel or sit or
fall on their faces or stand upon their heads during
prayers. Of the 200, some 40 are able to read, and
one, perhaps the begging-'etter-writer, has reached
the accomplishment of writing. From 30 to 40 of
the congregation partake of the Communion once a
quarter. These are the more advanced and better
instructed, who have been recovered from a life of
evil, trained and taught by the minister ; and it is
to the credit of his labours that '.'carcely any great
delinquency has hitherto disgraced them since they
joined. During the winter months, a loaf of bread
is distributed to each worshipper by the minister
after be has pronounced the benediction, for which
he has many willing and waiting recipients, as might
be supposed. Several instances of lasting moral
impression and elevation have occurred. The ragged
child in the sct 00l has led the minister to the ragged
parent, and the ragged parent in the church on
Sunday has guided the minister to the ragged
family on the Monday. A neighbouring congre-
gation furnishes, by subscription, funds to defray
the cost of this experiment. Its members frequently
respond to appeals made to their benevolence, in
the shape of clothes and medical comforts for the
most destitute or the sick. A very interesting
proof of what may be done at little cost in a case of
this kind, is worth recording as a hint to others.
A kind-hearted gentleman, having one day listened
to the annual sermon in aid of the funds of the
ragged church and school, came into the vestry at
the close of the service, and said that, while at sea
in his yacht, his crew had often caught great quan-
tities of fish, which, having no use for it, they cast
into the sea again. If the minister of the
ragged church would undertake to distribute a
hamper-fall of good fish among the destitute
people, he would send, carriage paid, a large hamper
containing soles, flounders, and skate. This he did
on three successive occasions, and the destitute poor
received each a good fish dinner, to their great and
rare satisfaction. A benevolent lady likewise finds
sewing for women who have no children, and situa-
tions for girls who can be trusted. But the great
perplexity is what to do with convicted lads, ex
pired ticket-of-leave men, and jail-birds. These
have lost their character, and to them stealing or
begging, or both, are sheer necessities. It might
surely be possible to find even for these some sort
of hard work, to which no responsibility or tempta-
tion is attached. It is interesting to notice that on
Tuesday, March the 10th, the 200 miserable men
and women who form the ragged church, with their
300 ragged children, sat down to a capital dinner
of roast beef and plum pudding, furnished by a few
friends, the minister presiding, and in cups of ale
sufficient they drank health and happiness to the
Prince and Princess of Wales, and wound up all
with " God save the Queen."
EXAMINER,—The Court of Prussia is said to con-
template an act of subserviency to that of St. Peters-
burg abandoned and so base as to be almost incredi-
ble. Yet the imputation rests upon such authority
as to render our wish to think no ill of our neigh-
bour almost hopeless. Count Eulenberg, one of the
reactionary ministers of King William, has had the
effrontery to tell the Chamber of Representatives
that his Majesty would at discretion betray the
disarmed Poles who had sought refuge within the
Prussian frontier into the hands of the Czar !
There are not many ministers or monarchs still
extant, we believe, capable of the cowardice and
cruelty which this wretched being has imputed to
its miserable master ; but for the sake o
humanity we hope we may assume that Count
Eulenberg is the only creature having in common
with true men the faculty of speech that
would thus wantonly declare beforehand its readi-
ness to be an accomplice in so base a crime. To
reason with what is lost to every sense of dignity
or honour, would be idle and degrading; nor do we
suppose that any threats of moral condemnation can
have the slightest effect in recalling the Court or
Cabinet of Berlin to the attitude or language or self-
respect. But there are other parties to the trans-
action, who cannot elude their share of the respon-
sibility. Those who stand by and see a child or a
woman handed over to an enraged savage for the
purpose of being beaten to death, are guilty of blood.
There is no law, human or divine, that can exone-
rate them from the duty of direct and peremptory
interference. The infamy of acquiescence in a hor-
rible outrage will cling to them to their dying day;
and if they have any conscience or feeling, the
death-cries of the innocent victims whom their
cowardice has given to the slayer will never cease
in their ears. The Prussian people have been warned
of what is about to be done in their name; and in
the public opinion of Europe it is they who musted
and will be held accountable if this most guilty de
be done. Nobody will listen to their metaphysical
explanations of the political pretences that will, of
course, be trumped up to vindicate such conduct.
Political metaphysics may do very well amongst
themselves; and other communities have, perhaps,
no right to scrutinise too narrowly, or judge too
harshly the motives of their unexampled moderation
towards the feeble and infatuated prince who has
done so much to provoke them to anger. But a flag-
rant. violation of that international usage which con-
stitutes international law is not merely a question
between Prussia and Poland; it is a matter which
concerns the civilisation of Christendom. As such
it will assuredly be viewed, and as such
it will un-
doubtedly be condemned. Tiae right of asylum
thus placed in jeopardy, is a reciprocal and univer-
sal right, in whose inviolability every independent
nation is interested. To set a precedent for break-
ing
it down at the bidding of aru
no thlesesbdbeisepeobu ist to
despotta
wrong done to us alt ; and we have
hold the perpetrator and his accomplices, be they
many or few, accountable to Europe for the act of
infamy. To say that no great Power of Europe has
ever had the baseness to commit such crime, would
be almost beside the mark. A great Power is sel-
dom scorned by the demand for an act of so pro-
found humiliation; and when it is, the degrading

concession has always been indignantly refused.
Prussia seems through its Government no longer to
aspire to any dignity, for even of the secondary'
States of Europe it may with confidence be said
that not one of them has been weak or wicked
enough to incur such a reproach. When the Turk
was called upon to surrender Kossuth and his com-
rades, in 1849, he peremptorily refused, and the in-
stances are fresh in every recollection of the like
national integrity and independence on the part of
Switzerland and Saxony. We put the matter,
therefore, at once upon ground of European law,
and we say plainly that nothing can warrant the
people of Prussia in passively aiding and abetting
the surrender of a single Pole to the Muscovite
murderers.
ATlM2Eum.—The collection of the National
Portrait Gallery—which is to be thrown open to
the pubrie on. Monday next—continues to increase
notwithstanding the difficulties that seem to beset
it. Since the period of our last record the trustees
have purchased several authentic portraits of
distinguished men ; but, only two or three of the
number deserve notice as works of art. A clever
miniature of Dr. Wolcott, more generally known as
Peter Pinder, by Lethbridge, is a truthful but ♦ery
favourable transcript of that selfish man and un-
sparing writer. As a piece of rich and honest paint-
ing, it is deserving of high praise. Bishop Horsley,
the opponent of Priestley, also by Lethbridge, the
miniature painter, has likewise found a place in the
Gallery. King Henry the Eighth, a small square
picture on copper, is from the Lee Priory Collection
and welcome as one of a class of portraits in which
the Gallery has hitherto been somewhat deficient.
The swarthy countenance of King Charles the
Second, in large black wig, with steel cuirass and
buff sleeves, is shown to considerable advantage in
a clever bust-portrait by Mrs. Beale, whose imita-
tions of Lely frequently pass for the work of her
master himself. General Monk, poor as a picture,
but valuable as a piece of accurate portraiture, re-
sembles in many respects a well-known miniature
of him by Cooper. Lord Chesterfield, taken at a
comparatively early period of life, and probably be-
fore the commencement of his celebrated Letters, is
a clear and well-painted picture, superior both in
colour and in drawing to the other more generally
known portraits by Hoare, of Bath, by whom this
alsa was painted. The round, placid countenance
of Richardson, the author of Clarissa Harlawe,'
with a pimple on his cheek, just sufficient to mark
identity, without producing a disagreeable effect, is
highly favourable as a specimen of Highmore's
powers ; whilst another portrait, exhibiting the
fiery eye and flexible mouth of Dick Steele, with a
sudden movement of the head, affords a striking
contrast both in character and treatment to the
foraier picture. Richardson, the painter, is cer-
tainly not seen to advantage in this picture
for the conception and execution are by no
means fairly balanced. Bishop Burnet puts
in an appearance through a heavily-
shadowed picture by Riley. He has a
sullen and obstinate look ; neither the eyes nor form
of the lips would prepossess any one very strongly
in his favour. He wears the blue mantle and is-
signia of the Chancellor of the Order of the Garter.
Many of the pictures in the Gallery are now hung
of necessity in the darkest places between the win-
dows, and several of the smaller and very interest-
ing portraits are put out of sight round the corner
of a projecting wall, where few persons would think
of looking for them. The terra.,cotta bust of Oliver
Cromwell has been carefully cleaned, and is worthy
of being seen in a better light. The pictures and
busts now amount to 159 in number.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

.►~_----

NORWICH-SATURDAY.

There was a fair supply of wheat to-day, and prices were
about the same as last week. Few samples of barley offer-
ing, at tormer prices.
White wheat. 45s to 46.= Red wheat 41s to 45s
Malting barley ...38s to 40s Chevalier barley 36s to 37s
Distilling d 0..... 33s to 35s Oats.. 24,- to 288
Flour, 32s 6d to 33s Od per sack from the miller.