The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-11 00:00:00

gies are direcled—less atrocious than at present. They
hate and detest the Corn-laws ; but they hate and
detest the Aristocracy, which insists on retaining
the exclusive power to enact such laws, still more ;
and they will ask for no boon at their hands, lest
perchance by granting it the Aristocracy should be-
come less hateful. If the opulent merchants and ma-
nufacturers cannot succeed by their own exertions
against the landlords they will not be supported by the
multitude. If their money cannot gain the day, there
will be no physical force at their beck to awe their
opponents into submission. The same circumstance
which indicates a state of feeling in the bulk of the
working classes pregnant with danger, will leave the
landlords and the Government to be guided solely by
those calm and patriotic views of the public good, which
they pretend are the exclusive guides of their conduct
as Legislators.
We hope something from their shame, if nothing
from their patriotism. The landlords dare not sit still
under the imputation of both plundering and starving
the people. The Government, unless it mean to dis-
card all responsibility, cannot refuse to take some steps
to avert the certain ruin of our manufactures. It is,
we believe, a prevalent opinion, in high quarters, that
the Corn-laws have already received their death-blow,
and we hope that Mr. POULETT THOMSON will con-
sider it his duty to be their executioner. A statement
made by him in Parliament, with all the authority
of Governmett, supported by documents and facts,
confirming, as we are unhappily sure they would, the
statements made in the Chamber of Commerce of
Manchester, would come appropriately from the
PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE. WC
presume that he retains his old convictions, that the
Corn-laws should be abolished. Such convictions
have by late circumstances been forced on almost
every man, not a landlord, and we do not see
how he can in that case remain a member of
a Government which shall persist in upholding these
laws ; and if it do not persist, he will be bound to
make to the Parliament, and through it to the country,
a calm, clear, and convincing statement of all the
facts which have been of late brought to light, and
which demonstrate that those laws are as ruinous
as they are avowedly iniquitous. If that be done,
if the Government be resolved to propose, as it
ought, on its own responsibility, to annihilate these
laws, and do justice regardless of the clamour of the
Squires and the Parsons, its merit will be the greater,
and its power to check the Revolutionists will be in-
creased by not heeding the absence of their demands
to do right.

We had great pleasure yesterday in recording the
triumph of the advocates of scientific improvement
over the jobbing monopolists, who tried hard to carry
the direction of the Great Western Railway by hook
or by crook. The public would have seen how
little the strength of the party corresponded with their
pretensions, for their numerical force did not amount
to a tenth part of shareholders present, norlwould
their shares have constituted little more than half the
number of votes polled had they not resorted to trickery,
which straightforward men would have disdained to
stoop to. And what was their real object ? To burke
the Great Western Railway altogether, so far as its
present direction is concerned—to turn out its talented
engineer, Mr. BRUNEL, whose high grasp of mind is
quite beyond their scientific comprehension—to as-
sume the direction themselves—then alter the guage
of the Railway, by contracting it to the dimensions of
the Grand Junction, thereby putting a stopper upo❑
all future improvement in Railway speed. The wise-
acres think, or, at least, they wish the public to be-
lieve, that there can be no further improve-
ment in Railways—that the Northern Lines are
the very perfection of art—that Railway tra-
velling has already attained its maximum speed,
and that it is useless to attempt anything better. The
sly jobbers ! Have they no eye to the future
—no apprehension that if the plan adopted by
Mr. BRUNEL succeed, as succeed it must, in attaining
far greater speed, with more safety and less expense—
that the public will compel them to alter their Rail-
way, or suffer the consequence ? Assuredly: and
therein rests the whole secret of their self-interested
opposition. Talk of carrying an amendment indeed !
—let them go home and amend their own ways, by
giving the public convenience a tithe of the considera-
tion hitherto devoted to their private interests.
It has transpired since the meeting of the Great
Western Railway, that a singular stratagem had been',
resorted to by some of the gentlemen from Liverpool,
who supported the amendment, of creating faggot
votes, in order to swell their numbers. The mode
adopted was to transfer all their shares above 20 into
the names of brokers, clerks, and others, in order to
obtain a proxy from each of them, with a vote for each
share. .

We are informed that by this trick, for we cannot
give it any other name, they multiplied the proper
nuinber of their own bona fide votes from about 530
to 2,650 I I If the Directors, and those Proprietors
who voted against the amendment, could have con-
descended to the same course, the majority would pro-
bably have been nearly 7,000 instead of 1,647 against
the amendment.

The calculation, however, of the actual division can
be very accurately made, if the statement we have
heard be correct, and •f this we entertain no doubt :
Votes gained by splitting shares in favour of

the —Amendment v 2,120
Majority against the Amendment 1,647

Actual Majority in Votes
This may be considered a most conclusive triumph
n every way.
For the Amendment ...... 6,145
Deduct split Votes

Votes for the Amendment should have been 4,025
Votes against the Amendment were 7,792

Thus leaving a Majority of nearly two to one in
favour of the Directors 3,767

=7--
Our readers will be amused and instructed by the
efforts of the Sergeants-at-Law, as recorded before the
Privy Council, to re-establish their monopoly in the
Court of Common Pleas. As long as the public
leaves any one of such monopolies in existence, it will
be the means of extending the whole brood, and in-
stead of restoring the Sergeants, we hope that the
bar will be thrown completely open, and a few Benchers
no longer allowed to determine who shall be Barristers.

Grandmamma told us yesterday morning that " anx-
iety and alarm" still prevail in the minds of " the re-
ligious public" on the subject of a " Sunday delivery"
of letters in the metropolis. There is neither anxiety
nor alarm any where but in Granny's foolish old noddle,
and all the world knows it is not a difficult matter to
excite alarm there. Were a delivery of letters in Lon-
don to commence next Sunday, we believe that it would
give all but universal satisfaction to the- community.
There may be a pack of fanatics, contemptible enough
in numbers, and indeed in every other respect, except
the lots ness of the cry which they are always ready to
open when common sense is Admitted into the regions
of religion, who would clamour against it, and on
whom our crack-brained Contemporary is pleasea to
confer the title of the " religious public." But of
what importance is it what they say or do ? If they
are to be listened to, we shall soon see the yoke of
Jewish ceremonies and superstitions bound upon the
necks of the people; for there is every bit as much
authority in the New Testament for circumcision, and

The whole of the Paris Journals of Wednesday,
have been received. The disturbances at Rochelle,
in consequence of the high price of bread, were not
ended on the sth, as it was found necessary to march
six hundred troops of the line, and some cavalry,
with two pieces of cannon, to prevent a general
rising of the labouring population. In the vi-
cinity of Rochelle the troops were met by about
sixty armed peasants with two drums and a
standard, whom they dispersed without difficulty.
Admiral BAUDIN is about to be rewarded for his
services:in the Gulf of
Mexico by a Peerage, M,
EMANUEL DE LAS C4sEs, a Member of tha
Chamber of Deputies, is about to proceed as Minister
Plenipotentiary to Mexico.
A summary of the debate in the Chamber of De-
puties on the address, will be found in another part of
The Sun. How it will end we know not, but the
opening has been vague, frivolous, and unsatisfactory.
The leaders of the Opposition have their hands tied up
by the perpetual presence of their own despotical acts
when in office. They dare not pretend to forget them
lest they might provoke the indignation of the Cham-
ber ; and hence an attack directed against times and
circumstances rather than against measures destructive
of the domestic liberties, and foreign influence of
France.

Madrid Journals of the Ist inst. have reached us,
but their contents are unimportant, The British A tn-
bassador gave a grand ball on New Year's eve, at
which nigat Qf the Members of the two Chambers
attended.

Brussels and German Papers of the latest dates have
been received to-day. The former announce that on
the 4th instant, the Belgian authorities arrested four
Dutch officers, who were hunting on the Belgian ter-

all the other rites and observances of the Levitical
Law as there is for the Sabbath. Indeed there is
much more, because JESUS CHRIST, the Divine
founder of our religion, publicly conformed to these
rites, while he set us a memorable example of the little
value he set on the strict observance of the Sabbath,
teaching us, at the same time, in vindicating his con-
duct from the attacks of the Jewish fanatics, the true
principle upon which all positive institutions rest,
namely, the public benefit : " the Sabbath," he au-
thoritatively declared " was made for man, not man
for the Sabbath." We do not mean to say that there
are not many cogent reasons for a periodical cessation
of labour—which, by the bye, was the sole purpose of
the Sabbatical institution—and a periodical perform-
ance of religious duties. Far from it ; but we con-
tend that those reasons are not derived either from
the Mosaic law, or from any injunction laid upon
Christians by JESUS CHRIST or his Apostles, to
whom alone Protestants are accustomed to look for
direction in important matters of religion. All that
we learn from the New Testament is that some of the
early Christians used to meet and sing a hymn on the
" Lord's day," but that persons in the situation in
which they were—many of them being slaves, and
almost all of them belonging to the class of day-
labourers—did, or could, devote one whole day in seven
to religious exercises is altogether inconceivable. Let
the observance of Sunday then be placed on its true
footing, and let those hypocrites who are continually
canting about the " desecration" of that day, show us
when it was " consecrated." If they advocated the
keeping holy the seventh day of the week, as the sect
called Sabbatarians do, they would at least have the
authority of the Old Testament in their favour ; but
as they do not do this, and yet claim the Divine sanc-
tion for the sanctification of another day, it is incum-
bent upon them to produce proof from the Scriptures
that that other day has been substituted for the original
one, and that too by Divine authority. Nothing short
of this will do.

The Clamour with which the proposal to deliver
letters on Sunday in the metropolis has been met by
the disciples of Sir ANDREW AGNEW, would have
been utterly disgraceful to persons of any other descrip-
tion. What one argument, or shadow of argument,
have they been able to bring forward against it ? Is
it argument to say that there will, in such case, be no
difference between Sunday and any other day in the
week ? Is it even the shadow of argument to allege
that religion will soon disappear from the capital if
people are allowed to receive their letters every day ?
Nothing can be more absurd than such pretences. Is
there a post town in England in which letters are not
received on Sunday ? Not one—yet there is no falling
off in religion ; we hear of no complaints about
" counting-houses being opened and clerks placed at
their desks" on that day. Where then is the reason
for anticipating such a result in London ? Scotland,
too—religious Scotland—has, from the first establish-
ment of a post-office, had a Sunday delivery of letters.
Has it destroyed the religious character of the people ?
No. The people of Edinburgh, of Glasgow, and of
every other town in that part of the kingdom, have
proved that no interruption in the performance of reli-
gious duties, and no " desecration" of the Lord's day
have taken place in consequence of this eminently con-
venient and judicious arrangement. And so will it be
in London when the Sunday delivery is introduced
there, as we hope it soon will be, in spite of the united
clamour of faction and bigotry.

The Moniteur of Wednesday announces the me-
lancholy death of the Duchess of WURTEMBERG
(Princess MARY of Orleans)---an event which has
plunged the Royal Family of France into the deepest
grief. This amiable and highly accomplished Princess
expired at Pisa, on the morning of the 2d inst., in
the arms of her husband, and her brother the Duke de
NEMOURS. The rare accomplishments of the Prin-
cess MARY, conjoined with the simplicity of her man-
ners, the benevolence of her disposition, and the purity
of her conduct and heart, had especially endeared her to
theaffections of the French people. The statue of JOAN
D'ARC, the Maid of Orleans, executed by this Prin-
cess, and another of CHARLOTTE CORDAY, which
has not yet been exhibited, are lasting memorials of
her abilities as a sculptor. Her taste in whatever re-
lated to the Fine Arts, was exquisite ; nor was her
patronage of struggling merit less enthusiastic than
her admiration of works realizing her ideas of the
highest excellence. As her nervous system was re-
markably sensitive, the frequent attacks made upon
the life of her Royal father gave her a shock from
which she never entirely recovered. After the
failure of A LIBAUD'S attempt which so manifested
the determination of a numerous body of conspirators
never to desist while the KING lived, she was so
affected with phantoms, conjured up by her imagina-
tion on the slightest noise, that the KING was fre-
quently obliged to visit her in the night to assure her
of his personal safety. On her marriage with Duke
ALEXANDER of Wurtemberg her health improved,
and it was fondly hoped by the Royal Family that
a long and happy life awaited her. Early in July
last she gave birth to a Prince, but in a few days
afterwards she caught a cold which brought on the con-
sumption to which he has fallen an early and lamented
victim. The physicians recommended the air of
Italy, and her Royal Highness, accompanied by her
husband, proceeded first to Genoa, and subsequently
to Pisa, where she expired. She was only twenty-
five years of age, having been born at Palermo in
April 1813. Immediately after the death of the
Duchess, her husband with the infant Prince set out
for France. The Duke of NEMOURS remained to be
present at a solemn high mass for the repose
of the soul of his sister, and in company with Count
DE RUNIINNY, the French Ambassador at the Court
of Sardinia, to superintend the removal of her remains
to Dreux—the burying place of the House of Orleans.
When the death of the Duchess was announced in
the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday, the whole
assembly, consisting of 400 members rose, and in a
body, preceded by their President, went and offered
an address of condolence to the KING. His
MAJESTY appeared greatly affected by so spontane-
ous an expression of cordial sympathy on the part of
this branch of the Legislature. It was France con-
doling with him and his family. The Duchess of
WURTEMBERG will be long remembered with affec-
tion and regret by a nation proud of her accomplish.
ments, her genius, and her virtues, which required
neither high birth nor exalted rank to place their pos-
sessor in a position which many Princesses would be
proud to occupy.

ritory, near Hozegras, and conveyed th,,ni to iirtres.
No further particulars are mentioned.
Cargoes of corn from the Black S,a continue to
arrive at Antwerp, to he re-shipped for England, when
our people have reached the legal starvation point.
The King of HANOVER has abolished the Cham-
ber of Domains of 1833, and established another,
which is not to be subject to the cognizance of any
body in the State save the SOVEREIGN.

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 1839.