The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIMES.—On Friday evening there happened one
of those events which excite alarm and commisera-
tion even in these days, when loss of life by accident
is so frequent and on so large a scale. The express
train from Brighton, proceeing at an immoderate
speed, ran completely off the rails down an embank-
ment between Balham and Streatham, causing the
death of four persons on the spot and inflicting
wounds on 30 others, some of whom are still in
danger. An accident of this kind, though it does
not destroy life so largely as the wreck of an emi-
grant ship or an explosion in a northern colliery,
has a deeper interest for the community at large.
We do not all rush in swift steamers among the fogs
and icebergs of Newfoundland; only a limited class
tempt the mine, or the fishery, or the powder mill ;
but railway travelling is part of the life of almost
the entire nation. Every year a larger and larger
number of persons are carried by train, for the most
part over short but rather dangerous distances, from
the hearts of great towns to spots in their suburbs.
Thousands live a few miles from their husiness, and
use the railway as their regalar means of convey-
ance. To all of those the late accident must come
home forcibly, for they hear of a train, without any
fault in the engine or the rails, without any mis-
taken signal or unremoved obstruction, being
dragged down an embankment, and the carriages
shivered to pieces, with 30 wounded victims lying
among the fragments. They learn that the cause
of this excessive effort was the fact that the train,
which had left Brighton at 5 o'clock, was actually
20 minutes late at Croydon, having arrived at that
place at 20 minutes after 6 o'clock instead of at 6
o'clock ; in other words, that an express train was
20 minutes late on a journey of a single hour. As
to the precise details of the accident we must await
the investigations that are being made. All that is
known has already been stated in the newspapers.
The accounts vary as to the number of carriages,
but it appears that the train was a large one, as no
less than 16 passenger carriages formed part of it.
' There were about 200 men of the Grenadier Guards,
who were returning from a course of rifle practice
at Eastbourne. As soon as the train left Croy-
don it went at excessive speed, and one of the
wounded soldiers states that the jolting was such as
to be noticed by all the men in his carriage. It
passed the talham Station in safety, but just after-
wards, the engineleft- the• rails, taking with it the
whole train.-The boiler of the locomotive exploded,
and the whole train, both locomotive and carriages
was mixed- in one "mass.' The unfortunate Guards
huffeted -moat.' --Tab were killed, and there are 28,
of them in the Grenadier Hospital. Col. Burnaby,
who was in command, showed much coolness and
resource. He formed all his effective men, as soon
as he could get them out of the carriages, iu two
lines, and employed them, in good order and
without panic, in extricating the sufferers. One
lady was killed, and several of the passengers,
including the Rev. Canon Cureton and his family,
were seriously hurt. No wonder that such an
occurrence as this should receive some notice in
Parliament. Lord Brougham thinks that the pro-
per way to prevent such accidents is to limit the
speed of trains to 25 or 30 miles an hour. From
this proposal we need hardly say we dissent.
We hope that with the progress of science and
enterprise trains will not only travel as fast as
now, but increase the facility of communication by
rates of speed hitherto unattained. Experience
has shown that with proper care in driving, with
well-constructed locomotives, and well-laid rails,
there is little danger in the very highest rates of
speed. The legislation which should pretend to
limit the advance of science would be certainly
disregarded. We do not wonder that the mer-
cantile men in Lord Brougham's Congress were
opposed to any such interference as his Lordship
recommended. The true point was touched by the
other speakers. It is probable that the late acci-
dent happened because an excessive speed was put
on a train in an incautious manner and at an
improper place, in order to make up for a most in-
excusable unpunctuality. This is the matter to
which attention must be directed, if there is to
be legislation at all. We know the advantages
we enjoy over the Continent in the superior
average speed of our trains, and we have no wish
to make invidious comparisons. But any traveller
in France, for instance, must contrast the exact-
ness of French railway timing with the scanda-
lous unpunctuality of the English lines. It may
be said of some of the lines out of London that
for a train to arrive at its destination at the time
promised is rather the exception than the rule.
While a traveller from Paris to Calais or Lyons, or
even Marseilles, may be almost certain to be put
down at the terminus with the greatest exactness,
no one can travel 60 miles on the lines we speak of
without preparing to be 10 minutes, 15 minutes, or
perhaps 20 minutes late, and correspondingly with
greater distances. On ordinary occasions this is
productive of simple inconvenience and disappoint-
ment, should any one be so simple as to think that
on coming up from a town on the south coast he
will be able to catch another train in London, or do
some particular business before a certain time. But
every now and then more serious consequences fel-
low. If Parliament is to interfere at all, it should
be to force the companies to keep better time.
There is no danger in a train going 40 or even 50
miles an hour at a proper place, but such "spurts"
as a driver sometimes makes to remedy his own or
somebody else's delay cannot but be full of peril.

POST.—The population 3f the Northern States
are certainly not unanimous in the desire to substi-
tute a military despotism for free institutions. The
arbitrary arrest of Mr. Vallandigham, a citizen of
the State of Cincinnati, and his trial and conviction
before a military tribunal, have not been allowed
to go unchallenged. In New York, the metropolis
of the union, one of the most numerously attended
of the many " monster" meetings which have been
convened in that city since the commencement of
the war has passed a series of resolutions denounc-
ing the conduct of the Administration in respect to
Mr. Vallandigham's arrest and trial, whilst the
Governor of the State of New York has written a
letter in which the manifest illegality of the acts
complained of, and the consequences to which they
must inevitably lead if allowed to pass unques•
tioned, are pointed out in language which must
carry conviction to the minds of all. It is one of not
the least curious of the many strange phenomena to
which the present war has given rise, that a nation
which not only enjoyed but had secured for itself
by
1 l3ave
its own prowess the institutions which distinguished.
reaodtoidy
upon
the American Government could so
submitted to the reported outrages in i
past
for the
i he historian
it by the weak Administration which
two years has conducted its affair_sfnno
of the Presidentship of Abraham
chronicling disastrous campaaigrsn "
with an inconver-
for conducting expensive
unfolding the details of
s,L'i anicialwshcehnemnoest
tible paper
lioncurrency,.or
and
jobbery, may fill his
administrative p
y instances in which Mr. Lin-
trampled under foot the laws
n?Benrrsespect, and arrogated to them-
selvespcoa advisto
exercise belonged alone to the
they
Lin-
coin pages
nwdi with
s the
powers whose Republic. It
of the were now needless
Legislaturete the various unconstitutional acts
to reiterate were bound
com-
mitted by the President and acquiesced in by the
American nation. The first battle had not been
fought between the North and South at Bull Run
before Forts Warren and Lafayette were filled with
prisoners accused of no definite•
crime and who in
vain demanded their trial according to the laws of
their country. Later in the war the Habeas Cor-
pus Act was suspended by proclamation, and the
entire area of the Northern States, from the waters
of Lake Superior
to the Gulf of Mexico, declared to
be subject
to martial law. 0 n the Ist of January
the President, of his
own mere motion and by a
stroke of his pen, usurped the power which legiti-
mately belonged to the several State legislatures
alone, and affected to emancipate the entire slave
Population of the Southern States. And still the
people of the North patiently submitted. From
time to time a few of the organs of the press pro-
tested against this assumption of power, and mass
meetings passed resolutions condemnatory of the
policy of the Executive. But neither leading articles
nor resolutions availed to arouse from their apathy
a people which seemed bent alone on collecting the
Treasury notes which a profligate Government scat-
tered about in boundless profusion. Whether it
was that a pure despotism possessed the charms of

novelty for a free people, or that the inhabitants of
the Northern States were too busily engaged in mak-
ing money to trouble themselves about the security
of their political institutions, is doubtful ; but the
fact of Mr. Lincoln and his Ministers having re-
tained office during two Tears cannat but excite the
astonishment of posterity, as it Has undoubtedly
surprised the present generation of observant poli-
ticians. It would seem now, however, either that
the Fe;deral executive has ventured a little too far,
or that the popular sentiments on the subject of
arbitrary government have undergone a change.
The results of the elections of la:st autumn were to
substitute a number of Democrats for 'Republicans,
and in New York the administration failed to obtain
the election of State officers belonging to its own
political faction. At all events the Democratic party
are evidently determined not to allow military tri-
bunals and martial law to take the place of civil
courts and civil jurisdiction. In the person of Mr.
Vallandigham they considered the rights and liber-
ties of every American citizen to be assailed, and in
denouncing the illegality of the treatment to which
' he has been subjected they protest against the crea-
lion of a precedent which would, if acknowledged,
• invest the Executive with absolute power. If any
one who, like Mr. Vallandigham, thought proper
at a public meeting to comment in strong, but
what in this country would not be deemed repre-
hensible, language on the policy of the Adminis-
tration, could be arrested, tried by drum-head
court-martial, and sentenced to be confined in a
penal settlement for two years, there would of
course be nn end to all public meetings whatever
in which the action of the Government supplied
the theme for discussion. The Northern popula-
tion, however, are not prepared to abandon the
right of canvassing the policy 0, a chief magis-
trate whom they have elected for a brief period,
or to grant to his soldiers the right of prescrib-
ing the exact limits within which they may dis-
cuss the possible future to which they are being
conducted by a man who, in any event, must in
two years time sink into obscurity.
HERALD.—CoI. North's motion for a royal com-
mission on the subject of Army Mize is postponed,
we understand, until June 23. We earnestly hope
it will not be deferred beyond that period, and that
this important topic will then be fully discussed. It
is certain that in this matter very searching inquiry
and extensive reforms are imperatively demanded.
The cruel delays which attend the present system
of distribution, the secret manner in which claims
are investigated, the variable and inconsistent princi-
ples which in some instances determine the decision
of the authorities, have made the existing practice
odious in the eyes of all military men, and have
compromised to a more than usual extent the jus-
tice and integrity of the British Government. It
is notorious that under the present system no secu-
rity or assurance is given to the soldiers of realising
even after years of protracted solicitation, the fruits
of their own conquests and achievements. Army
prize is declared to be distributable not by law or
precedent, not by any settled principle of justice,
but simply at the discretionary, that is to say, the
arbitrary will of the Government of the day. It
happens accordingly that one general may be per-
mitted by the award of the Minister to receive the
exclusive benefit of his own captures, and also to
take the lion's share of the booty captured, inde-
pendently, and at a great distance, by another
officer. Others,- with stronger claims, preferred
under analogouseonditions, are neither permitted
to share in the good-fortune'of their comrades nor
to take much benefit from,,the spoil acquired by
their own corps d'armee. It may be that the
Government, in such contradictory' decisions, dis=
cerns, or fancies that it discerns, special circum-
stances which tend to justify its- apparently
iin-
consistent course. Yet so long as the facts of
the case are not made manifest by public inquiry,
And established by open and- unimpeachable testi-
tnony, it is impossible that the world out of doors
can appreciate, the equity of the judgment,.a_iid
suspicions-of-favouritism inevitably he 'sug-
gested and received. It is from the absence of
all judicial procedure in the distribution of mili-
tary prize that the army feels itself specially
aggrieved; in cases of naval capture the claims
of those entitled to share are speedily and equi-
tably determined by a legal tribunal. Hence it
is that we hear of no such interminable discus-
sions with respect to maritime prizes as those which,
on some well-known occasions, have made the con-
tention for army prize money so notorious. The
judgment of the Court of Admiralty is given pub-
licly, upon evidence fairly and openly examined,
and in conformity with certain fixed principles
and rudiments of prize law, But the claims for
military booty are not investigated openly. Infor-
mation is conveyed to the authorities by private
and occult channels. Ex parte statements,
and, in some instances, untrue data, are laid before
them, and are perhaps accepted without being
submitted, even for the most cursory examination,
to the opposing parties. It is quite possible,
under the present system, that falsified documents
and other frauds may be employed to the injury
of the actual captors of the booty, who, from being
kept in ignorance of these devices, must be wholly
powerless to counteract them. Now, if we do not
go so far as to say that some or other of the Minis-
terial bureaux must necessarily be willing dupes
under such circumstances, yet we must say that so
long as they allow themselves to decide upon pri-
vate testimony, they must be held responsible for
the greater share of the injustice. What would be
said of a court of law if it allowed one party to
plead openly, and subjected its witnesses to cross-
examination, but received all the evidence from
the other side with closed doors, and finally pro-
ceeded to judgment in accordance with the tenor of
these secret representations ? Still more, what
would the whole country say if these secret repre-
sentations should subsequently be found in some
important particular to be essentially incorrect ?
Would such a tribunal exist for a week after so
damaging an exposure of its incompetence or in-
justice? Yet we believe that prize-money justice
is, under the existing system, occasionally admi-
nistered under some such inconveniences as we have
just suggested, and any preliminary measure which
promises in any way to correct such a state of
things will certainly be supported by public opinion.
No doubt we shall be told that this is entirely a
matter of prerogative, and that military booty is
altogether at the disposal of the Crown. This
position it is not our present intention to contest,
though the point seems open to some controversy,
for we remember that in 1843 Mr. Hume denied the
right of the Crown, inasmuch as it no longer paid
the expenses of the war, to dispose of army prize
money without the concurrence of Parliament. But,
without discussing the accuracy or unsoundness of
this opinion, we cannot allow that secret procedure
or j adgment contrary to the evidence is a natural
and necessary part of -the Royal prerogative. If
the Crown declares that prize money shall be
granted to those who can establish a right to share
in it, this promise, it seems to us, ought to signify
that the investigation shall be fair and open, thatt
the decision shall be in accordance with precedent,
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NEW CONVENT AND GIRLS' SCHOOL.—Cardinal
Roman Catholic Church of that locality. There
was a
yesterday opened
large attendance of Roman Catholic clergymen from diffe-
giWriiss'emscahnool
nt parts of London. After the religious ceremonial
re
ckieuner took place, at which the Hon.
presided. After the usual toasts Cardinal 117',
1. eman ad-
dressed the meeting. He alluded to the rapid increase in
the number of buildings devoted to
He acknowledged that much kindnessworship and education.
be shown in many localities by liberal
and good feeling had
beral-minded P
towards Catholic clergymen rotestants
engaged in the effort to provide
education for the poor.

MAILS FROM AMERICA DUE THIS 1VEEK."••••
The Liverpool,New York, and Philadelphia Steam-
ship Company's screw steamer City of New York, which
was to sail from New York on the 23d ult. with the United
States' mail, will be due at Queenstown in the course of
tonight. The Montreal Ocean Steamship Company's
screw steamez Bohemian, with the Canadian mail, which
was to leave Quebec on the 23d ult., is expected at Lon-
donderry in the course of to-night. The Cunard steam-
ship America, with the mails from Halifax and Boston on

the 27th and 28th ult., will be due on Sunday at Queens-
town.

ANOTHER FATAL ACCIDENT THROUGH FIRE.-

Information has been forwarded to the coroner for
Surrey of the death of Miss Anne Moore, lately residing
at Chapel-street, Newington, which occurred under the
following painful circumstances :—lt appears that the de-
c-ased, who was an invalid, got out of bed to sit by the fire,
and while in this pesition it is supposed that a spark flew
out of the grate and set fire to her night-dress. The ser-
vant smelling smoke, proceeded to her room, and was horri-
fied to find the unfortunate young lady in a sitting position
on the hearth-rug enveloped in flames. The fire was ex-
tinguished, and every means employed to allay her
hitherto
made, the glad new s to the
but she sank under the combined effects of the burns
and the shock to the system.
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made. Offices, 32, Basinghall-street, London.
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