The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-10 00:00:00

clans like Dr. SEMPLE and Dr. GUY, to
a high state of nervous excitement. It
still does appear to us rather surprising that
the excitementof the plaintiff never reached a pitch
to which more irascible men would certainly have
been driven long ago, namely, that of taking the
law into his owu hands (or strictly speaking per-
haps we should say more correctly, feet) by summa-
rily ejecting his male persecutors at the point of the
right toe across the threshold of his domicile ! In-
stead of acting thus under his excitement and irri-
tation, Mr. HALL looked wild and staring ! Where-
upon Dr. SEMPLE and Dr. GUY signed the needed
certificate and the " remarkable sensibly looking"
tradesman is forcibly conveyed away to a mason de
sante ! Because of this proceeding, Mr. HALL
brings his action against Dr. SEMPLE. Because of
the plain facts brought to light during the trial the
jury find, very reasonably and very justly, as it ap-
pears to us, a verdict for the plaintiff, condemning
the defendant at the same time to pay damages to
the extent of Ll5O. Dr. GUY, warned by the fate of
his associate in signing this certificate, will hence-
forth think twice, we take it, before again " flatten-
ing his nose" against a shop window in Tottenham-
court-road, in order to estimate in that way by per-
sonal observation the sanity or insanity of the
unconscious tradesman within : as Dr. GUY was
actually proved to have done on the 13th of June, in
Mr. HALL'S instance as a preliminary to signing
the certificate consigning the plaintiff to a mad-
house ! Dr. SEMPLE, again, we may be tolerably
certain of this in Ms instance, will hardly quite so
readily as he did in the case of Mr. HALL, doom to
an asylum as a stark " staring " lunatic, any un-
fortunate man accused of insanity by a shrevish
wife, a female friend of the same, and a
charwoman ! By the result of his last day's ap-
pearance as Plaintiff in a Court of Law against Dr.
SEMPLE as Defendant—Mr. HALL may certainly be
considered to have obtained, and may here be very
heartily congratulated on having obtained, full and
satisfactory compensation for the exceedingly dis-
agreeable nights passed by him in the midst of mad-
men at Munster House, in the suburb of Fulham.

Shall we really have a military coup d'etat in the
country where we hope our PRINCESS ROYAL will
one day be Queen ? We confess appearances begin
to look like it. So wildly and outspokenly abso-
lutist is the language of the KING that Dr. SEMPLE
would have been found guilty of negligence by no
jury had he signed a certificate to place him in a
Lunatic Asylum. His language to the little depu-
tations got up by the reactionary party, to
furnish the KING with texts on which to hang his
sermons on despotic government, grows every day
worse and worse. In the last speech, just received,
he appeals to the army itself, and tells it that the
Liberals desire to destroy it. In reply to an address
from some inhabitants of Marienwerder, expressing
their loyal sentiments, the KING said—" The pre-
sent movement is not so much directed against
the new organisation of the army as against
the army itself." He is obviously tampering
with the huge standing army of Prussia, and pre-
paring them to stand by him in his conflict with
the people. He is proposing, probably, to make
sure of the army in the same way as Louis
NAPOLEON did, just before he used it to subvert
the liberties of France. We strongly suspect that
his heart's thought is that the soldiers will back
him in a grand assault on the liberties, such as
they are, of the Prussian people.
He at the same time openly proclaims war with
what is meant by Constitutional- Government.
"The aim," he says, " which is principally pursued
by every means is the inauguration of a Constitu-
tional Government. The Constitution has not pro-
mised this, but only legislation with the
co-operation of the Parliament." The sentence
is somewhat Delphic, but unless it implies
that Constitutional Government means, not
the KING governing with and through the repre-
sentatives of the country, but the country subor-
dinating all its wishes to those of the Sovereign—
we must confess we see no meaning in the words
at all. We must understand him to the same
effect in the sentence which follows, when he says
—" I am fully determined not to part with the con-
stitutional rights of the Crown, which form its
powers. Nothing shall divert me from those views,
which I have pursued since I assumed the Re-
gency, because they serve the welfare and the
power of the country, which require a powerful
Crown and a powerful army."

Surely such language as this, which is altogether
in keeping with all he had said since he sent
the members of his parliament :home, declaring
his intention to raise money in the genuine STUART
fashion can only be introductory to telling the
army to choose between their king and their country,
with the hint that they know their paymaster.
The officers are generally of the reactionary class,
the class which believes in armies and monarchs,
and has no faith in popular assemblies. They
would almost to a man stand by him. Whether,
however, the privates would do so, is more doubt-
ful. They are, in great part, closely connected
with the people. The Prussian system is
one which passes nearly all men through the
ranks of the army, and the only hope of Prussia, if
this Royal madman should go on to what his lan-
guage seems to indicate, would be in the fidelity of
citizen soldiers to their fellow-citizens. Our best
hope is, that if he does make any attempt to reign
through his army, instead of through his Cham-
bers, his army an his people would give him an
opportunity of seeing Brighton.

THE REMAINS OF THE LATE PRINCE CON SORT.—
It is expected that the remains of his late Royal Highness
the Prince Consort will be removed from the Royal vault
in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, before the 14th inst. to
their last resting-place, which has been prepared in the new
Royal mausoleum now in the course of election in Frog-
more• gardens. This beautiful building, a description of
which has already appeared in the columns of The Sun, is
gradually advancing towards completion.
The Earl Russell has recovered from his severe
cold. On Monday his Excellency Baron Brunnow and his
Excellency M. Musurus had interviews with the noble earl
at the Foreign-office.

THE NEGRO MARKET AT RICHMOND.—The negro
market has shown considerable activity the present week,
anda vceo r.,ayn
egaetde
rwd ealyl; a
fAtamtihl
ye sale i
groomso
no fs iAis It
iens
gs r
as
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andPulliam l3 rprices
e as
the mother:and seven children, boys and girls, one in the
mother's arms, sold for five thousand one hundred dollars,
and a second family of the same lot, consisting of a mother
and four children, boys and girls, brought two thousand
eight bundled and eighty dollars. At the auction rooms of
Hector Davis, Esq., there was a large sale of single likely
negio men and women, some of the latter with children.
The following is the range of prices :—Likely boy, 15 years
old, 1,480 dole.; common woman and girl, 1,015 dole.;
likely girl, 16 years old, 1,290 dole.; woman, girl, and
boy, 1,860 dole. ; negro woman, 730 dole ; woman and boy,
1,200 dols.; likely girl, mulatto, 1,320 dole.; likely mulatto
boy, 10 years old, 1,300 dole,; woman and two children,
likely, 1,900 dols. ; likely farm hand (man), 1,010; wotnan,
cook, washer, and ironer, GOO dols. The attendance of
buyers was quite large.—Riehmend Examiner, Nov. 22.
AMERICAN DIAMOND.—The largest diamond in
North America is now being exhibited at Boston.nlt was
found about a year since in the northern part of North
Carolina, on the Virginia border, near the Blue Ridge.
In the rough it weighed nearly 24 carats, and the cut dia-
mond weighs nearly 12 cal ate. Its value is between 10,000
dole. and 13,',00 dole., and but for two almost inappreciable
spots it would be worth more. In size it approaches a large
plum-stone in length, but it is deeper and broader, almost a
square on the face, with rounded corners. Each .of the
numerous facets had to be ground down separately, it being
unsafe to chip off corners for fear of cracking the stone.
The cost of the fine sand used for this purpose was above
100 do's., and the charge for the entire work 1,500 dole.