The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-18 00:00:00

LORD PALMERSTON•

Shortly after 5 o'clock last evening the following
bulletin was shown to his lordship's friends at
Brockett

"In consequence of having taken • cold, Lord
Palmerston has been seriously ill, but he has steadily
unproved during the last three days, and is now
much better. _ _

THOS. WATSON, M.D.
" PROTHEROE SMITH, M.D.
"Brockett-Hall, Oct. 17, 1865."
At a late hour last night the following was the
bulletin :

" Lord Palmerston's illness has become worse
since the morning."

Telegraphic messages have been sent to the
Queen in Scotland since Sunday last, and Sir George
Grey has been communicated with through the
same medium.

Without any desire to cause pain to the friends
of the noble Premier, it cannot be disguised that he
is very seriously ill.

WEDNESDAY MORNING.
Lord Palmerston is sinking fast.
The following bulletin was issued at nine o'clock

this morning :

" OCT. 18TIT, 9 A.M.

" Lord Palmerston's condition altered suddenly
for the worse in the evening of yesterday, and he is
now gradually sinking.
" THOS. WATSON. M.D.
" PROTHERIE SMITH, M.D.
" CHAS. DRADGE, M.D.
" Brockett-hall."

On inquiry at Cambridge House at three o'clock
this afternoon we were informed that no further
bulletin had been received.

BAPTISMAL FEES.—Yesterday an application was
made at the Judges' Chambers to Mr. Justice
Byles, to remove by writ of certiorari a plaint from the
Dover County Court to one of the superior courts. The
action, it appears, was brought by a clergyman against the
Poor-law Guardians to recover his fees for baptising pauper
children. The application was opposed on the part of the
clergyman. The learned judge, however, gr;uted the ap-
plication, observing that he could not say that points of
law would not arise in such a case. In reply to a question
whether the usual terms as to security for costs would be
imposed, his lordship said that, looking at the position of
the parties, there was no necessity for such an order. The
action will thereforo be tried in one of the superior courts •

THRILLING SCENE.—On Sunday, while the fire
in the woods at Cedar Swamp was at its height, an
extra train of 16 cars, bringing the Fourteenth Maine
Regiment on their way home to Augusta, came over the
Eastern Railroad. On either side of the track tho flames
rose 40 feet high, the noise drowning the sound of the
train. It was a fearful sight to behold. The oil on the
wheels took fire, and along the train was seen revolving
wheels of fire, while the 700 officers and men of the gal-
lant Fourteenth were nearly smothered in the dense smoke.
Fortunately the long train drawn by the Cape Ann went
through the terrible ordeal without accident; and as the
cars emerged beyond the burning district, the smoke rushed
from the car windows into the air, giving an appearance
of a train on fire.—Portsmouth (N. B.) Chronicle, Sept.lB.

How TO RUIN A SOLDIER.--I am not only quite
sure that no soldier was ever reformed by the lash
—that not only have good men become bad after its inflic-
tion, and that no bad man ever became good after being
flogged—but I am also equally convinced that the sight of
this punishment is very far indeed from being a wholesome
example. The non-commissioned officers of a regiment
hear and see a very great deal of which the commissioned
officers are in utter ignorance. In the English army there
are so very few officers who have been promoted from the
ranks, that between the officers' and sergeants' mess-rooms
there is a gulf which it is almost impossible to span. How-
ever well meaning and professionally zealous an officer may
be, he knows nothing whatever of the feelings or the
opinions—the prejudices, if you like—of the men ho com-
mands. There is an idea among officers that the example
of the lash is good, and will deter many from evil. I know
as a fact that the exact contrary is the case. I never yet
heard even the best-behaved soldiers say among them-
selves that any man condemned to be flogged
had deserved his sentence. But I have not heard,
not once, twice, nor a dozen times during my long
term of service, but every time a soldier was tied up
to the triangles, no matter how great a scoundrel he had
been—no matter even if he had robbed his room-mates,
which, in the soldier's code of laws and morality, is the
greatest crime of which a man can be guilty—l have in-
variably heard his comrades, from the moment of his being
condemned to be flogged, regard him as an object of the
deepest pity. But the lash is not the only punishment we
have, which degrades a soldier to such an extent that he
feels himself lost. When a man deserts, after he is caught
he is very frequently (almost invariably) sentenced to be
branded on the shoulder or back with the letter D. When
I first joined the —th Light Dragoons (since transformed,
as all light dragoon regiments have been, into the —th Hus-
sars), the corporal of my squad was as gentlemanly a young
man as you would wish to see. It was rare to meet with
a young fellow of such good address and correct manners
in the ranks of the English army. His father was a poor
clergyman, and had not the means to buy him a commis-
sion, and so the lad enlisted into a cavalry regiment. He
had a brother-in-law in London who was well-to-do in the
world, and he obtained permission to spend ten days at
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the end of that time returning to the Royal Barracks in
Dublin, where he reported himself, and was put under ar-
rest. He wrote out a statement, and showed how, though
ho had been guilty of over-staying his leave, he never for
a moment intended to desert. But the colonel thought
otherwise. This was not the kind-hearted old gentleman
who commanded us some six years later, but a gentleman
who had very recently exchanged into our regiment from
half-pay unattached. He ordered the corporal to be tried
by a garrison court-martial, and this tribunal sentenced him
to be imprisoned for three months, and to be branded with
the letter D in the usual manner, besides being reduced
from the rank of corporal to that of a private dragoon.
The sentence was carried out, and the unfortunate man
never held up his head again. To drown care, he took to
drinking, and in two years died of delirium tremens in the
Belturbet Hospital, after having spent more days in, than
out of, the regimental cells, and being tried more than once
by a regimental court-martial for intoxication.—Dickens's
" 411 the Year Round."