The Sun.
London, England, 1854-02-08 00:00:00

PETITIONS.

Mr. ROEBUCK presented a petition from a Fire-
office, praying for a reduction of the duty on Fire In-
surances.

ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS.
Mr. BLAND wished to ask the Secretary for Ireland,
whether it be the intention of the Government, in-the
proposed measure for transferring jurisdiction from
Ecclesiastical to Civil Courts, to include those in Ireland.

Sir J. YOUNG replied in the affirmative.
MR. HUDSON.
Mr. HUDSON threw himself on the indulgence of
the house while he made some explanations in reply to

to the charges which were made against him last night.
He complained that the honourable member for Fins-
bury had been wanting in courtesy, in not having given
him notice of his intention to adopt the charge which
the Times had so freely made against him, or no amoun t
of personal inconvenience should have prevented him
from being present. As it was, he was detained in the
country on business of a public character, or he should
have been present in his seat last night, and he hoped this
preliminary explanation would sufficiently account for
his absence. (Cheers.) The hon. member for Finsbury
accused him with having attempted to corrupt members

of the house; and the Times newspaper had repeatedly
done the same thing ; but, like all the charges which

that newspaper had from time to time preferred
against him, it was either utterly without founda-
tion, or admitted of an explanation which could
in no way reflect dishonourably upon himself. It was
true that some things which the hon. member read
from a report of the proceeding in the Court of Chan-
cery gave a colouring to the charge, but had the hon.
member taken the trouble at, the time he was making
the accusation, to read to the house the letter
which his solicitors addressed to the editor of the
Times on the subject, it would have been seen
that the newspaper report gave quite a different com-
plexion to his affidavit to what it really bore. But the
boa. member, not content with having made this charge
about corrupting members of the house, ventured to
talk of his having been compelled to disgorge a large
sum of money. Now, although it was true that, by the
decision of the Court of Chanceiy, he was required to
refund money which he declared upon his honour he had
never received ; yet though this decision• placed him
legally in the wrong, it woull ultimately turn out that
all through the transaction he had been morally right.
It was fortunate for him, therefore, that there was still
an appeal to a higher tribunal against that decision.
Nevertheless, he courted the inquiry which the hon.
member asked for—nay, he called upon the house to
trace his history from the cradle up to the present time,
and if they found anything in it which was un-
worthy of a gentleman and a man of honour, he would
at once take leave of his seat in Parliament, so
conscious was he of having pursued a strictly
honourable and straightforward course throughout his
whole career. (Hear, hear.) It had been his good
fortune once to bask in the sunshine of public favour
as it was now his ill fate to suffer under the stigma of

misapprehension and misrepresentations ; but, perhaps,
when he and the hon. member for Finsbury were alike
removed to another and, he hoped, a better world,
posterity would do him the justice of admitting
that at least one portion of his life had been well and
usefully spent in the promotion of works of great public
utility. (Hear, hear.) If his "past conduct had been
actuated by a mercenary motive, he could have found
plenty of opportunities for amassing vast wealth without
resorting to the vile and scandalous means that were im-
puted to him ; but on all occasions, he was rejoiced to say,
he had resisted temptation, and refused to receive shares
on public.grounds which others had freely accepted, and
for which now no blame whatever was attributed to
them. (Hear.) But enough—strong in the conviction
that though now he was pronounced to be legally wrong,
he had yet always been morally right. He left the house
to deal with this charge against him in the manner sug-
gested by the hon. gentleman • and thanking them for
the attention which they had given him, he would
conclude by promising, that, whenever the inquiry
took place, he should be quite ready and willing to meet
it to the fullest possible extent. (Hear, hear.) The
hon. member, who was occasionally moved to tears,
then resumed his seat, and the subject dropped.
SAVINGS BANK RETURNS.

On the motion of Mr. BBOTHERTON the following re-
turns were ordered :
" Returns of the total number of deposit accounts open
in savings banks in more names than one on the 20th day
of November, 1852, and the total amount as the credit of
such account; distinguishing the accounts opened before
the 20th day of November, 1844, from those opened since
that date : Showing, year by year, in totals for each year,
when such accounts were first opened, and the total
amount then placed at their credit : And, showing the
distribution of such accounts, on the 20th day of November,
1852, into the several classes set forth in the classification
for the annual return to the 20th day of November 1851;
and, the like returns for the year ended the 20th day of
November 1853.
• 2. Address for return from each Savings Bank in Eng-
land and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, containing, in
columns, the names of the officers, their respective salaries
and other allowances, if any ; the amount of security each
gives ; the numbers of accounts remaining open ; the total
amount owing to depositors; the total amount invested with
the commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt ;
the rate of interest paid to depositors on the various amounts
of deposit and the average rate of interest on all accounts, and
the total amount of the separate surplus fund, on the 28th
day of November, 1852 ; the
ther expensesatepercenetufmmapneargaeritanz
on the capital of the bank for
the annual number of receipts from depositors; the an-
turd number of payments ; the average amount of re-
ceipts ; the average amount of payments ; the number
and amount. of annuities granted; the annual expenses
of management, inclusive of all payments and salaries, for
the year ended the 20th day of November, 1852 ; also the
day or days and the number of hours in the week on which
the banks are open for the deposit and withdrawal of
nioies : And like return for the year ended the 20th day
of November' 1853."' -
ASSESSED TAXES ACT AMENDMENT BILL.
This bill was considered as amended, and ordered to
be read a third time to-morrow.
he other orders were then disposed of. and the house

RUSSIAN CIVILISATION AND TURKISH
B A RBARISM.-MATERIAL GUARAN-
TEES AGAINST THE FORMER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SIIN.
Sit,—ln common, doubtless, with thousands of
your country readers, I have been looking, as each
morning's Sun has appeared, for the dawn of some
light on the Russian question. I have looked in
vain. Blue books may reveal a little more verbal
boldness than we had expected ; and the husband
of our beloved Sovereign may be quite cleared of
all overt and unconstitutional interference with

foreign matters ; and we may believe that the evil
does not exceed the inevitable consequences of our

throne being connected by family ties with Conti-
nental despots, courts, and armies. Prussia and
Austria may now present a phase of greater self-
respect to wane but too soon into the darkness of
Russian influence ; and this 'seems to be all. Even
our fleets, which were to be so polite to the Rus-
sian flag in the Black Sea, while they protected
that of the Turks, have quite posed us by their
return to Beycos. But worst of all, sir, is the
unpardonable folly, or cowardice, if it be not
mere Continentalism, which has made to Russia
the offer of " renewing the old treaties"—that is,
of the status quo ante be/kon; and which, having
done this, does not even demand of the Czar a
prompt categorical answer to this shamefully indul-
gent offer as Prince Menschikoff did of the Sultan
to his shamelessly insulting and rapacious ultima-
tum. I quite agree with your remark on Monday,
that " the time• for diplomatic negotiation has gone
by, and that the period of action has arrived.'
_

Mr. Cobden is fond of extolling the civilisation
of Russia and the barbarism of Turkey. If super-
stition be civilisation, no doubt the believers in
God and the Czar (or in the Czar and God) can
successfully contend for the palm with the simple
believers in God and the Prophet. If manufac-
tories managed by foreigners, and upheld by tariffs
alone, be Mr. Cobden's Russian civilisation—

although his political life has been spent in
convincing Englishmen . that it was feudalism
and • barbarism in his native land why,
Russia can beat Turkey in that too. If also it
be civilisation to decrease imports and to

block up the mouths of ti.e finest rivers in Europe,
there again Russia has decidedly the upper hand ;
since our trade with her has diminished, and that

of Turkey almost doublel in the last few years.
And while the Turks did rake away the mud from
the mouths of the Danube and kept open traffic for

ships of all nations with some of the most produc-
tive countries in Europe, Russia was only civil
enough to promise to do it, but, as usual, civilised
enough to break her promise ; and all to compel
ships to go to Odessa, a port which land produce
can only reach in carts, instead of loading direct
from the granaries of the Danube and its numerous
tributaries.
But this reminds me, sir, of one of the most
villanous conditions of the status quo ante bellum,
as it is termed. One of your weekly contempora-
ries, pretty well disposed to bepraise the Ministry
too, published, on the 24th of December, an article
headed "Russian hostility to Commerce," " the
Navigation of the Danube." But for its length
I should be tempted to ask insertion for
it in your columns. The cream of its
" extracts from recent travellers," &c., is this.

By the treaty of 1829, Russia obtained possession
of the three mouths of the Danube ; by a treaty
with Austria, in 1840, in defiance of the treaty of

Vienna (1816), she obtained power to levy a tax on
all vessels entering by the Sulina mouth, in consi-
deration of which tax she was to keep it open.
Also by the treaty of 1829 she obtained power to
establish a quarantine, not only at the mouth of
the river, but between the northern and southern
shores of the Turkish portion of it, i.e, between
Bulgaria and Moldo-Wallachia. English, or rather
European, apathy and Turkish weakness, at that
time, enabled this fraudulent power to succeed in
these highly civilised demands. The purpose soon
became manifest. The Sulina mouth was yearly
more and more blocked up with the mud of Rus-
sian civilisation, the Turks having been so bar-
barous as to clear it away easily. But the mud of
Russian quarantine appears to be infinitely worse
than the river mud. Travellers are stopped for

several days together, and merchandise taxed again
and again by Russia in passing from the north to
the south side, and, vice versa, of the river, where
it flows through the Turkish dominions. Vessels
clearing at Liverpool or London for the Danubian
ports have to pay enormous fees to the Russian
consul here, often amounting to 1001. a cargo, if
they wished to be saved a 40 days' quarantine at
Odessa, or a sixty-five days' one at Galatz.
The quarantine regulations are so barbarous as
almost to surpass belief—and what with mud
and quarantine together, Russian civilisation has
made it needful to tranship cargoes into lighters,
exclusively Russian, at a cost frequently: of 3001. a
cargo, and made the freight from Galatz at the
entrance of the Danube more than double that
from Odessa. What with harassing vexations,
fees, charges, and mud, Russia is doing her utter-
most to destroy the trade of the great Austrian,
Hungarian, and Turkish river, and to transfer it
all to Odessa. Very properly did the Ministerialist
journal demand, on the 24th of December, that no
renewal of treaties shall take place which does not
deprive Russia, " not only of her right to establish
a quarantine on the mouth of the Danube, but of
all control over its mouth." Probably Mr. Cobden
sees, in all we have just adverted to, the zeal of
Russia for commerce. I can see in it only Russian
cunning in robbing other countries of their trade,
and their free trade too. In my judgment, sir,
the Cabinets of England and France will be dis-
graced, while commerce has a history, if they do not
secure the Danube for the world, and the adjoin-
ing provinces for the free trade of the Turkish
tariff. I cannot comprehend how free trade be-
comes barbarism because of the difference of lati-
tude and longitude between the Thames and the
Danube.

One word more. As you have justly said, action
is now the thing. We have sent Russia an ulti-
matum ; one in which we hope the Danube is meant
to be included. Now, Russia has taught us how
she thinks ultimatums are best enforced. She has
adopted her old plan of taking a " material guaran-
tee • ' why should we not do the same ? Odessa
would be some use ; Sebastopol, I suppose, in a
military sense, more. We have made a demand on
the great Robber, in the name of European inde-
pendence, to quit the provinces and to let the
Danube alone. He delays an answer. He sends
questions and Orloffs to gain time. Let us give him
the answer ; let French and English fleets, and
troops also if necessary, seize and occupy his Black
Sea fortresses, with the -intimation, too, that, if all
be not settled before, we shall want a little further
guarantee in the Baltic when the ice melts. He
cannot complain of this as war. " Oh, no !" we
should loudly reply, we hold these places
only as material guarantees,' till you accept
our most righteous ultimatum, that of restor-
ing the stolen territories. You have your-
self announced that taking material guarantees is
not war ; and, further, if we enlist a few Russian
gunners, and make them work the guns against
your own troops, it will be nothing more belli-
gerent than your forcing the Wallachian militia to
serve against their masters." Really, sir, I can-
not see why we have not better right to take a
guarantee that a thief shall restore stolen goods
than Nicholas has to take one that he may be
allowed to_steal them with impunity.—l am, Sir,
yours respectfully, C.

SUPPOSED ATTEMPT TO MEAN INTO WINDSOR IbNuDrSgOiaRriCoAuSsTLE
Next to setting the Thames on fire,
en-
trance into Windsor Castle would appear to be the most
pefft effect, and
been toim phoeshseivbeletthheinagttetmo
Hon. A. N. Hood, of
rceulimabbleerlaauntdh-oloridtgye,,thcatleCrko-lm. It is stated, on
s of the South-
WesternA bert , arrivedit
ail Railway
aayt thhye to. H.R.H. Prince
Monday. When the South Western abouttai midnight on
was erected, some three years ago, a r'lway station
carriage-
road was made at the foot of the illopeps itvoatteh
the entrance being immediately opposite thee Castle.
waiting room. This road is used only I,
membergsuoefen's
Ro3 al family and by gentlemen attached to thci Royal
household. On leaving the train last Monday night,
Col. Hood proceeded by the Slopes, as the nearest way
to the castle, and was not a little surprised to encoun-
ter in his walk seven or eight men with their faces
theW nldassatothrrayeethtereatarlimade.tnni theren is every reason
blackened and their feet muffled, if he might judge by the
noiseless character of their movements. The ruffians fled
at the approach of the hon. and gallant gentleman, and
have not since been heard of. On inquiry, it appeared
that the suspected burglars were observed by the sen-
tinel on duty at the corner of the Prince of Wales's
Tower (on the basement of which is the gold pantry),
and that he, looking down from the Terrace, threatened
to Ore upon them. To this they replied, that if he at-
tempted to fire, or give the alarm, they would blow his
brains out. The hostile parley had proceeded thus far,
when Colonel Flood entered by the lodge-gate in Dat-
chet-lane, and the burglars doubtless supposed that he
was at the head of a party sent to capture them. This
will, account for their precipitate flight and subsequent
escape. On the arrival of Colonel Hood at the castle
the police were ordered to patrol the Slopes for the re-
mainder of the night, but they could detect nothing
likely to excite suspicion, or serve as a clue to the ap-
prehension of the guilty parties. The affair has created
a great sensation in Windsor, and will cause the palace
to be guarded more strictly than ever, especially after
nightfall. •

UONVETANOE OF TROOFS:—It is Understood that four
vessels originally taken up by the Government to con-
vey troops from Ireland to Malta, and thence to the
West Indies, have since been taken up on monthly char-
ters, so that they may be available to nrncead ta .nv