The Sun.
London, England, 1839-03-26 00:00:00

the Poor-law authorities to consent to such a course, they
dismissed the summonses against those labourers having
more than two children, and ordered the rates of the others
to be paid forthwith."— Wilts Herald.
Besides,being valuable, as demonstrating the wretched
condition of the agricultural labourers in Wiltshire, the
paragraph is a conclusive answer to Lord WonsLEv
and the tribe of landlords who advocate agricultural
protection, because a high price of food is always at-
tended by high wages of labour. The wages average
95. per week, and the present high price of provisions
was successfully pleaded as a reason of exemption in
certain cases from payment of rates. All the income
of the people is actually absorbed by purchasing bread ;
though, according to Lord WORStEY and his colleagues,
in committing cruel injustice, as the price of bread rose
wages should rise in proportion, and the labourer should
have more to spend on poor-rates or on any other con-
trivance by which it pleases the Legislature to take
every possible farthing out of the pockets of the indus-
trious poor. It will be seen, too, by the paragraph, that
the men with 9s. a-week, and having more than two
children, are exonerated from the paying the rates,
while those who had not the advantage of possessing so
many children were ordered, though they bad only 9s.
a-week, to pay them immediately. The men, therefore,
with small families, must pay for the men with large
families, a restoration of the old bounties on impru-
dence which were so much reprobated and so generally
discarded. An exemption from taxation on this ground

is the revival of the old principle of eneouragingpopu-
laand is, on the part of the Devizes Magistrates,
antkotin;er blow given to the prudence and independenee
of the poor.

The miserable result of the attempts to form a new
Ministry in France fully confirms the opinion which well-
informed persons had long ago entertained of the
character, of Louis PHILIPPE. Taking the most fa-
vourable view of the present state of parties in France,
and the current of public opinion in that country for the
last ten years, it is hardly possible to come to any other
conclusion than that he is speedily working out his own
destiny by obstinately persevering in the attempt to
establish a despotism in a country that has unequi-
vocally pronounced in favour of liberty and a Repre-
sentative Government. The Chronicle, which occa-
sionally mixes up in a strange way Tory doctrines with
the most Liberal ideas, thus wrote yesterday morning :
" The French ought to give up the idea of a Representa-
tive Government : they seem utterly incapable of it."
There never was a more wicked slander cast on a nation.
For what has the struggle been carried on since the
mad edict of CHARLES X. but for the Charter—in
other words, for a Government in which the power of
the Crown shall be controlled by the Representatives
of the people. It was for this blood was shed in the
" three days of July," and for this a great majority of
Deputies has been returned, in opposition to the will of
the Sovereign ; and because the Sovereign for the moment
sets the national voice at defiance, the French people
are declared unfit for self government. It would
be time enough to make such a declaration
when Louis PHILIPPE shall have completed what
CHARLES X. began—put down the liberty of the
Press, destroyed the Charter, and rendered himself as
absolute as Louis XIV. or NAPOLEON. No doubt he
has crippled the Press, he has disregarded the Charter
and latterly shown every disposition to rule alone ; but
have the French people acquiesced ? Is not the late
election a decided proof to the contrary ? The end has
not yet come. The determined manner in which the
elections were carried on, the vain means used to dis-
tract the attention of the people, by the success of
French arms in South America, and by threats of in-
vasion on their Eastern frontier, and the endless at-
tempts to carry the elections by every species of
bribery, intrigue, and intimidation, all prove that the
French nation look mainly to one great object—the
establishment of a Representative Government. Louis
PHILIPPE will try to defeat this. He has declared he
will rather be deposed than yield. This is the question
between him and his people, and when it is solved, it
will be time enough to say whether they deserve the
character imputed to them, or are determined to carry
into effect the principles which placed him on the
throne. Judging from the past it is not difficult to
come to a conclusion, and on the head of that party
that breaks the solemn compact entered into between
King and People, be the responsibility.

This is the day fixed for the opening of the French
Chambers ; but as the KING is without a Ministry, and
France without a responsible Government, it was be-
lieved in Paris on Sunday evening, that a prorogation
would be resorted to, in order to allow more time for
the construction of the Cabinet. The Journal des Dc-
bats, in answer to a paragraph in the ilioniteur, contra-
dicting a rumour that the Ordinance for the prorogation
had been signed, observes that in the absence of a definite
Cabinet the KING would stand before the Chambers in
person—uncovered by the responsibility of a Ministry
—a situation in which that Journal does not believe it
possible that the MONARCH would be rash enough to
place himself. Nevertheless it was asserted by the
partizans of the Court that the KING would open the
Chambers by Commission, and leave the Deputies to
elect a President before taking any steps towards the
appointment of a Ministry or a prorogation. Of course
there would be no speech from the Throne. A day or
two will remove all doubts upon this head.
" It was affirmed to-day (Sunday), in the Hall of Con-
ferences of the Chamber of Deputies, that there will be
no Royal sitting. M. Lacave Laplagne, it is added, on
the refusal of Count Mole, will coma to the Chamber of
Deputies to declare the Session opened, and M. Barthe,
will perform the same ceremony in the Chamber of Peers."

Madrid papers of the 17th instant have reached us.
The Government was then carrying on an active cor-
respondence with ESPARTERO. A report prevailed
that the Government had been offered a loan to a large
amount by some London capitalists, whose names, how-
ever, were not mentioned on the Bourse.

The Russian Government has been obliged to break up
the University of St. Vladimir at Kiew, on account of the
secret societies for the overthrow of Russian domination,
which pervaded the University.
The Grand Council of Zurich have come to the decision
not to eject Dr. Straus from their University, but to put
him on a retiring allowance of 404 a year.

DESTRUCTION OF FITZWALTERS BY FIRE.
We regret to state that this ancient mansion, which is
situate about a mile from the village of Shenfield,
.
was totally destroyed by fire yesterday morning. Mr.
Hall Dare, the owner of the property, was at home at the
time, the other inmates being three male and three female
domestics. The servants went to bed before eleven
o'clock on Sunday night, but Mr. D. sat up reading in the
parlour on the east side of the building till between twelve
and one o'clock, when lie also retired to rest, leaving a fire
in the grate, before which he placed a guard. Apparently
everything was safe in the house. Soon after one o'clock
he was aroused from sleep by a heavy crash; he immedi-
ately rang the bell, and the butler, who slept below, having
heard the same noise, instantly went to his master. There
was a strong smell of fire in the house, and the butler on
opening the door of the room where Mr. Dare had been
sitting, discovered it enveloped in flames, and a dense
volume of smoke which issued from it, nearly suffocated him.
Notwithstanding the engines, the materials continued
to burn with unabated fury until five o'clock, when the
flames were somewhat subdued, and by seven o'clock they
were wholly extinguished, dense clouds of smoke only
issuing from the ruins. A portion of the outer walls
now only remain to mark where stood the " Round
House," which for two centuries has been an object
of curiosity to the traveller, from its singular octagonal
form. The origin of the fire is unknown. It is conjec-
tured to have been occasioned by the igniting of a beam
over the fire-place, which, it is supposed, must have been
smouldering some time. Not a vestige of property be-
longing to the domestics was saved, but Mr. Dare had
insured their wearinb apparel for 100/. The house and
furniture were insured, but to what amount we have not
ascertained. The damage sustained is estimated at from
4,0001. to 6,oool.—Essex Herald.
STUTTGARD, MARCH 10.--The Budget pre-
sented to the Estates for the last financial year, estimated
the revenue at 27,606,457 florins, and the expenditure at
27,599,748 florins; leaving a surplus of 6,709 florins.
The actual amount, however, proved to be as follows :
Receipts 32,590,669 florins ; Expenditure 27,859,686 ;
surplus 4,730,985 florins.
DREADFUL AND FATAL CALAMITY.—On
Friday morning John Frost, a quarrier, went, as usual, to
superintend the work at the pit, and having forgot some
powder he was about to use, he sent a young woman to his
house to ask his daughter for the bottle containing gun-
powder. On the young woman arriving at the cottage, at
Ketley, she found three of the children up, but Mrs. Frost
and four others were in bed. Elizabeth Frost, a gill of
thirteen years of age, who, with a younger sister and an in-
fant brother, were in the common living room, went up stairs
and returned with two bottles of powder, one of which was
given to the messenger, and the other placed on a chair by
the fire-place. The young woman bad just left the house
on her return to the pit when she heard a terrific explosion,
and on looking round she saw Frost's house levelled with
the ground, burying the whole family in the ruins. Imme-
diate assistance was procured from the pit and the neigh-
bouring cottages, when such of the sufferers as survived the
explosion were dug out. Mrs. Frost and the four children
who had not risen were found badly mutilated and bruised,
but still alive ; and the two girls and the infant who were
in the room when the young woman went for the powder
were dreadfully burnt and quite dead. On Monday an
inquest was held on the bodies and verdicts of " Acciden-
tal Death" returned. Slight hopes are entertained of the
recovery of the other sufferers.—Salop Journal.