The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-26 00:00:00

CONDITION OF FEARGUS O'CONNOR.

The reports of the state of Feargus O'Connor, from
the asylum of Dr. Tuke, show conclusively that there
is no prospect of his restoration. His restless life—
misapplied as we think, though well applied as his
admirers think has exhausted his mental powers, and
the decay of his body may be expected to follow that
of his mind. We have never been admirers of Feargus
O'Connor. If he were honest, he was miserably defi-
cient in judgment and unfit to guide other. His schemes
were wild delusions, his promises merely made dupes, and
his policy was to set class against class, to divert men
from real to imaginary remedies, while he was ever the
bitterest foe of those who laboured for the accomplishment
of measures which have made this country secure and pros-
perous. We do not judge his motives but his acts. Yet it
is right to infer a man's intentions from the means he
employs, and to say that if the one be bad, the other
,can hardly be good. We are, therefore, very far from
being prepared to join in the language of admiration
and eulogy in which Mr. Ernest Jones gives an account
of a recent visit to O'Connor. We pity the condition to
which the man is reduced, but that is a matter quite
apart from our opinion of his character and conduct.
Mr. Ernest Jones describes the failure of Mr. O'Connor's
intellect as a, terrible change. He was requested by Dr.
Tuke to speak to Mr. O'Connor on the old subject that
had been accustomed to create in him the strongest ex-
citement, such as the Chartist movement, the Land Com-
pany, the Northern Star, &c. He found Mr. O'Connor
perfectly harmless, and playing with a little child of Dr.
Tuke. He immediately recognised Mr. Jones, and showed
great pleasure at seeing him. In person, he is stouter,
b'ut a gradual paralysis is stealing over the frame, show-
ing itself in disinclination to exertion, and the dim and
clouded eye indicates the decay of intellect. Mr. O'Connor's
account of his habits is, that he rises at nine and goes to
bed at ten ; that he is treated as one of the family, and
spends his time at billiards, in playing with the children,
arranging books, &c. He told Mr. Jones that he knew he was .
in a lunatic asylum, but he was under no restraint, and
all the people were mad there but himself. He could
go away if he chose, and did not know why he
did not. Reference being made to the Chartists, he asked,
" How are you going on ?" and sung his old stave
of " The lion of freedom," asking with exultation—
" Do you know how I thrashed the blue lambs in Not-
tingham market-place ?" He knew that the Northern
Star was dead, and
ejaculated " How I was robbed ?"
He spoke with great indignation of the allottees in
bhis lanad scheut me, an o
hashers whom he thought he had
efrinde, bwh
and he expressed great a bec
pome his bitterest enemies ;prehension of seeing his
sister, or being given up to her care by the Court
Such is the present condition of the man
of Chancery.
who a few years ago bad such Power over the masses
he fostered Sand
of the population, whose prejudices
flattered, and whom he beguiled from the path of ratio-
oenferthgye without
nal improvement to spend money and
stint upon wild dreams. The histo
agitation, under the guidance of
.O'Connor, is one of the
most humiliating passages in our national annals.

TWENTY MURDERS.—The following appears in the
Courrier de Marseille of Saturday :—" Some persons
who have just arrived from Toulon inform us that a hor-
rible discovery had been made by the police of the town.
For some time past the public rumour signalised a house,
occupied by an agent for finding substitutes for the army,
as the theatre of a series of atrocious dramas. Minute
researches having been made, about twenty corpses,
buried in the cellars of the house, were found. It ap-
pears that the victims were successively assassinated,
and that the death of the first took place several years
ago. The confessions of a woman in her last moments
laced, we are asmred, justice on the trace of the crimes.
The victims, according to the same person, were mili-
tary substitutes received by the Conseils de Revision ;
and the man murdered them in order not to have to pay
the price of their enrolment."
FOREIGN MAILS now arrive at the General Post-office
at almost all hours of the night. As soon as news of
their approach to London reaches the General Post-office
iirm the outports, by electric telegraph, a staff of clerks
ferBl2l.r.l•by messengers, and the mail is got ready
foreign By this arrangement the whole of the
the i rails
are delivered in London and dispatched by
"lung mails, instead of being left behind, as was -
often the case when thoe former did not arrive in London
before four or five o'clock in the morning by the regular
night mails.