The Sun.
London, England, 1853-09-28 00:00:00

Admiral CORRY has no more chance of smelling
gunpowder than his brother in arms, Admiral
DUNDAS, the Channel Fleet being merely ordered
for a cruize on this side of the Gut of Gibraltar.
And so doubts are endeavoured to be infused
into our exultation at the first glimpse of a nobler
and more befitting policy on the part of
her Britannic MAJESTY'S Government. It be-
hoves every one, therefore, still to watch with
jealous eyes the variable turns and fluctuations of
the Ministerial kaleidoscope. Vigilant—to detect
what new pattern may be formed out of the parti-
coloured contents of the Cabinet, the black, and
white, and blue, and yellow of the Whig-Radical-
Peelite-Conservative Administration. Events
must yet justify the panegyric pronounced upon
the Earl of CLARENDON with so much fervour and
magnanimity by his illustrious predecessor in the
direction of the affairs of the Foreign Depart-
ment. Notwithstanding the manly opinions
avowed at Greenock by Lord JOHN RUSSELL, and
the generous views enunciated at Perth by

Viscount PALMERSTON—notwithstanding even
the orders sent to Admiral DUNDAS, and the
instructions forwarded to Lord STRATFORD—
it remains yet to be demonstrated whether
Lord CLARE-NDON has indeed " penetration to see
where the interests and the honour and the safety
of the country are to be sought, that he has
sagacity to discover the proper means for pre-
serving
and maintaining those interests, and that
he has firmness and energy and perseverance to
pursue the right course to arrive at a successful
and perfect result." Happily the Noble Lord the
member for Tiverton did not content himself with
upon his successor. He spoke
ore to the purpose when he declared
pronouncingeu
somewhat
ogi m this vague or rather generalised
u
m
---.." If my noble friend (Lord CLARENDON)
receives—as lam sure he will—the cordial, the
generous support of the country, you may depend
upon it that he will not disappoint the just ex-
pectations of his countrymen. (Loud cheering.)"
In this assurance there is more than may be con-
! jectured by the superficial. The policy of the
Coalition—as intimated by Lord PALMERSTON--
is dependent entirely upon the views expressed
by the population. It is because we re-
cognise, to the full, the force of this
remarkable declaration—it is because we believe
that the policy of the Cabinet may be moulded to
any shape by the resolute will of the general mul-
titude—it is because, while convinced of this, we
are satisfied as to the tendency of the popular
aspirations—that we are disposed to exult with
what might otherwise appear overweening
confidence in the bolder, and manlier, and
more chivalric course which we trust will
now be really adventured upon by her Bri-
tannic MAJESTY'S Government. Otherwise ex-
pressed, our opinion amounts to this—that Eng-
land will be true to herself in the present emer-
gency, and that her children hold in their grasp,
so to speak, the destinies of Europe, because
endowed with the capacity of moulding to their
pleasure the foreign policy of the plastic Coalition.
A substantial guarantee of this policy becoming
thus more honourable, more resolute, and more
liberalised, might be furnished, of course at once,
by the " excellent" ABERDEEN'S resignation—no
matter whether that resignation were spontaneous
or compulsory.

The Recorder of the City of London has made
a brilliant discovery. The Right Hon. Gentle-
man has ascertained that the Legislature and the
public journals have for some time past been la-
bouring under a very serious error in supposing
that assaults on women, more particularly of
husbands on wives, were on the increase. He
then declared that he " did not find the slightest
evidence of any increase of that description. On
the contrary, there was reason to believe—and
this was not his own opinion only, but the
opinion of all the officers of the Court—that the
great improvement which had recently taken
place amongst the classes where these outrages
upon the wife were generally found, had tended
materially to reduce this character of offence ! "
From these views of the supposed facts he
ar-
rived at tlao eonelnuion that " it would not 100 ne-
cessary or wise to call upon the Legislature to
magnify the punishment which attached to these
cases, as that would only increase the indisposi-
tion of the wife or liar friends to prosecute ;"
adding—" It would be much safer and more pm-
' dent to let the law remain as it was ; and he was
satisfied that, combined with the power which
public opinion exercised over the minds of per-
sons who were predisposed to resort to acts of
violence against their wives, it would be found
sufficient to meet all exigencies !"
Now, this was not an opinion hastily or reck-
lessly put forward, or without full and ample con-
sideration. The most solemn occasion was se-
lected for its enunciation, when no views that
were not the result of mature deliberation would
be put forward. It was in the Charge to the
Grand Jury, at the Central Criminal Court,
that the Right Honourable Gentleman made the
above statements, as the result not only of his
own great experience, but also as that of all the
officers of the Court of which he was Chief Judge.
It may also be assumed that those officers unani-
mously concurred with him as to the impropriety
and impolicy of sanctioning any alteration in the
law which would impose more stringent punish-
ments on that class of offenders. Such views
must carry with them peculiar weight, if well
founded, and as unfortunately, we find ourselves
compelled to differ therefrom toto ccelo, and to
record the reasons for that dissent. We do so, not
in any invidious spirit towards the Learned
Gentleman, for whom, in his judicial, as well as
in his individual capacity, we entertain un-
feigned respect, but simply because we feel it to
be an imperative duty not to permit such asser-
tions which may hereafter be repeated in
Parliament, to pass without notice or contra-
diction at the time of their dissemination.
Let us then see how the state of the case really
stood on the very day when the Right Honour-
able and Learned Gentleman put forward these
extraordinary statements, when he did not find
the slightest evidence of any increase, but, in com-
mon with all the officers of his court, thought
that " the great improvement which had taken
place amongst the classes where these outrages
upon the wife were generally found, had tended
materially to reduce this character of offence ! "
The first case which he would look to in the calen-
dar placed before him, as involving the most exem-
plary punishment, the only case which he himself
deemed it expedient to refer to,' was that of
THOMAS MOBBS, who was capitally charged for the
murder of his wife. The Right Honourable Gen-
tleman had evidently perused attentively the de-
positions taken before the Coroner, for he in-
formed the Grand Jury that, " if the evidence at
all bore out the statement, they would have no ,1 difficulty in returning a true bill against the '
Prisoner. We shall not enter into the facts of
this horrible case, further than to state that it
was distinctly shown that the prisoner had long
pursued a
course of habitual ill-treatment of his
nnfOrtWiate Wife, so much so, that he was known
Aaighbouruood, by the soubriquet of
the
"General
RA:MVP ---. that name being con-
sidered, in the district, as synonymous with
of his brutal propensities
woman-flogger. It was the
continued indulgence
with impunity that led
to the last deplorable tragedy,
when the un-
offending woman met a violent and sudden death,
and the husband has been committed to stand his
trial for the highest crime known to the law, and
and ignominious death on the scaffold.
which, if convicted, he must expiate by painful
On the same day that
the Right Honourable
Gentleman delivered that
extraordinary charge,
the adjourned inquest on the body of ELIZABETH
ncluded, when a vet,
HAYES was resumed and co

diet of " wilful murder" was returned against

JAMES HAYES, the husband of the unfortunate
deceased, who was therefore committed to New-
gate, to stand his trial at the Central Criminal
Court. It was clearly shown that the accused
had, on the night of her death, violently assaulted

. _
her in the public market ; that he knocked her

down twice with his fist; that, when she got up
the second time, she ran behind a person named
TAYLOR, for protection, who told her to go from
behind him, as he thought the husband might