The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-13 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JUNE 13. 1853.

he may obtain the evidence of the plaintiff, that
either of the litigants can, at a certain stage of
the proceedings, call upon his opponents to sus-
tain on oath the truth and accuracy of his allega-
tion. But, unfortunately, this is not until the
mischief has happened and the greater part of the
expense being incurred. The greater portion of
these evils would be averted by requiring, a preli-
minary verification, either, by affidavit or solemn
declaration (which if untrue would subject the
party making it to stringent penalties). Such a
verification is required under the Common Law
Procedure Act, where a party applies for leave to
take issues at law, and, in fact, in common par-
lance, to plead and demur to the same pleading.
In such case he is obliged (Section 80), to make
affidavit that he is advised and, believes that he
has just ground to traverse the several matters
proposed to be traversed by him, and that the
several matters sought to be pleaded by way of
confession and avoidance, are respectively true in
substance and in fact ; and that he is further
advised and believes that the objections raised by
such demurrer are good and valid objections in
law." This enactment has hitherto had a very
beneficial effect, and prevented the recurrence of
double issues of law and fact being taken, unless
there were adequate grounds for such a course,
which, if adopted, would be calculated to further
the ends of justice."
On the whole then, and with considerable diffi-
dence in differing from the Learned Commissioners,
and from legal reformers so zealous and so con-
sistent as the Attorney-General of England and
the Solicitor-General of Ireland, we believe
that " the due verification of the pleadings" at
every stage will be attended with the most bene-
ficial results in the great majority of cases, and
that no serious mischief can in any instance arise
if a discretion be allowed to the Court or a Judge
in Chamber to relax the rule and substitute some
other test, whenever the circumstances of the
case may render such an indulgence necessary ox
expedient. We trust, then, that the principle
which, so far as Ireland is concerned, has already
received the Legislative sanction, may be intro-
duced into the promised measure for carrying
the recommendations of the Common Law Com-
missioners into practical operation. We have no
doubt that the result will be materially to di-
minish the number of unconscientious demands
and of vexatious defences.

An Engineer of eminence has at length been
found hardy enough to protest against the dogma-
tism, the jobbing, and the incompetency of Mes-
sieurs the Sanitary Commissioners. Let us
acknowledge at once that we are heartily rejoiced
at this formal protest coming from one of the
members of the injured profession. It exonerates
them from the imputation of submitting meekly
to a course of proceedings such as may have been
deemed by some portions of the community to
have derogated at once from their dignity as a
body and from their independence as individuals.
It exonerates one of the members at least—the
gentleman who has dared to raise his voice as a
dissentient against the views carried out by the
potentates of Gwydyr-house—Mr. HAWKSLEY,
C.E., of Nottingham. A letter has recently, we
observe, been addressed by him to the Marquis of
CHANDOS, in reference to the exercise of some of
the extraordinary powers which he declares to
have been "assumed" by the General Board of
Health, in contempt of all right and of all reason,
and in direct violation of certain injunctions laid
down by Act of Parliament. Mr. HAWKSLEY
goes further than this—he ventures to illustrate
the accuracy of his statements by an enumeration
of divers "public and private wrongs," which he
maintains to have traced to the domineering inter-
ference (in matters in which they ought never to
have interfered) of these same potent and prag-
matical officials—the Sanitary Commissioners. It
appears, no doubt, from the latter part of Mr.
IIAwKsLEY's communication to the Marquis of
CHANDOS, that ho himself has experienced at the 1
hands of the Commissioners some rebuffs and
much shameful treatment in his capacity as a
Civil Engineer. And from this circumstance wo
have every confidence that those who swear by
the wiseacres clustered together under the ,roof-
beams of Gwydyr-house will deduce the comfort-
ing conclusion that the whole- of the accusations
entered against the Board of health by Mr.
HAWKSLEY are attributable to the petulance of a
disappointed man, to the rancour of personal an-
noyance, to the jealousy, the spleen, and the
indignation engendered by a sense of persona,l dis-
paragement. All this might be wonderfully well
in the way of ingenious and sophistical extenua-
tion—but that, as ill-luck would have it, the writer
of the letter to Lord CHANDOS is capable of some-
thing more formidable than mere empty vitupera-
tion. Mr. lIAwKsLuY may possess, for aught
we know to the contrary, a, marvellous facility for
calling names, a surprising capacity for invective,
or a knack like that of "An Englishman" for
tickling the vulgar appetite of a mob with a mix-

cure of elegant rant and rhetorical Billingsgate.
He may be. able to patter slang with PIERCE

EGAN the Elder, or with Mr. WILLIAM HARRISON
AINSWORTH. He may exult in a refined inventive-
ness of abuse like that displayed upon occasions
by the Irish Liberator, as where he is described
as having thrown a fish fag into hysterics by
accusing her of appearing in the streets the night
before with a couple of triangles, assailing her at
the same time with the opprobrious epithet of
a walking parallelogram in petticoats ! Mr.
HAWKSLEY, we say, may possess all these rare
and enviable gifts as a disputant—but, in
that case, he has taken care to conceal the fact
altogether from his readers. If he be nothing
more than an angry man—surely never did angry
man display more consummate coolness, more
exemplary self-command, or a more cool-blooded
determination to prove his case with the preci-
sion of a mathematical solution, so that one
almost expects to find, instead of his initials at the
end of the docuinent, the customary Q.E.D.
The truth is—Mr. HAWKSLEY, from all we can
learn, had no need to be in a passion either to
demonstrate the accuracy of his assertions, or to
vindicate his own professional reputation. All
that he had to do to satisfy the cravings of his
" great revenge" was to hold a mirror up, not to
Nature, but to Gwydyr-house, and to reveal pre-
cisely as they are the solemn conclave of the ne'er-

do-weels of the Sanitary Commission. It is ex-
actly this, we believe, that Mr. HAWKSLEY has
done to the members of the General Board of
Health. He weighs the matter at issue in the
balance with all conceivable deliberation. He takes
the whole system to pieces, wheel by wheel,
pulley by pulley, hinge by hinge, and shows, at
any rate to our thinking, before he has done with
it, that here also might be said, as was said by
the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer of Mr. GLAD-
STONE'S famous scheme in regard to the Fund-
holders, that " Never was there a more elaborate
piece of machinery—for doing nothing !" But
no—the Board of Health does in its way much
worse than Nothing. It is true, of course, that

its powers have proved long since to be entirely
inoperative of any good in the creation or diffusion
of anything at all bearing even the mere semblance
of sanitary improvement. it is true, moreover,
that so far from working good to the community
in this direction, it has actually presented a posi-
tive obstruction to the advance of the sanitary
movement—that its contrivances for a better sys-
tem of drainage have been productive only of pes-

rence--that its endeavours to secure ventilation

have not enabled it even to ventilate itself—that
it, as a body, perhaps more directly and positively
than the interested body of the ecclesiastics,

transformed into a dead letter the vaunted and
" amended" measure for the prevention of intra-
mural sepulture ! Added to all which, the Board
of Health, while doing no good itself, and actu-
ally preventing good from being done by others,
has striven to keep up appearances by a fussy
display of activity, setting on foot inquiry after
inquiry, getting compiled report after report,
sending inspectors into the provinces here, there,
and everywhere, and encouraging those inspectors
to job for their own emolument, while pretending
to carry out simply and even-handedly the designs
of ber MAJESTY'S Government.

Row all this is demonstrable may be recognised