The Sun.
London, England, 1854-01-03 00:00:00

from Berlin comes to us laden with the record of

fresh arrests—arrests showing, it is thought by
many, that the conspiracy of last spring was of
considerably larger importance than some ob-
servers have hitherto conjectured. From Madrid
we learn that anxiety for the health of M. TuRGOT
commands the interest of the masses, together with
the reception of the Duke and Duchess de MONT-
PENSIER. On the other hand, we learn, through the
latest despatches from Lisbon, that the King Regent
had, on the 19th ultimo, proceeded in State to the
Cortes, and there formally taken the required
oath of allegiance. Meanwhile, we have to re-
mark in Paris a considerable fall in the Funds—
attributed in part, we are told, to the result of the
liquidation. However this may be at the Bourse,
another circumstance is clearly and satisfactorily
re-assuring to the public mind throughout France
—a circumstance of itself sufficient to justify the
declaration made the other evening by the Patrie,
that France has confidence in her EMPEROR—that
incident, we mean, which marked the grand cere-
monial of the reception given on New-Year's Day
by NAPOLEON 111. and his Empress EUGENIE to
to the Ministers, Cardinals, Bishops, and, among
other high personages, the Corps Diplomatique—
when his MAJESTY having addressed a few gracious
words to the assembled representatives of the
other Sovereigns expressive of a hope that it
might be within his capability to maintain ami-
cable relations with the Powers his allies, singled
out the Turkish Ambassador, assuring him that
his sympathies, his good feeling, and his strenuous
efforts would all be exerted in the cause of the
SULTAN, an assurance which his Imperial MAJESTY
thereupon requested might be communicated to
ABD-UL-MEDJID by his diplomatic Representative.
Of all recent occurrences of a political character,
that we believe to be the most important and the
most significant—an incident creditable to France
and honourable to NAPOLEON. All the while,
intelligence such as the foregoing dropping in upon
us from Paris, from Lisbon, from Madrid, from
Berlin, from Vienna, from St. Petersburgh, from
Constantinople—in London Ministers are still
drowsily and silently preparing themselves for
their dreaded Parliamentary explanations. Eng-
land is compelled, whether its so doing be palata-
ble or unpalatable, to swallow intermittent doses of
hope deferred. We have as a people to illustrate
the wisdom of that verse of LONGFELLOW'S—
" Learn to labour and to wait."

Restricted to this effort, we find even it suffici-
ently difficult—difficult not only in regard to the
waiting, but also (bearing in mind the "Strikes,")
in regard to the labouring. Nothing else, how-
ever, seems left to us ; we are denied any alter-
native; until the arrival of the 31st of this notable
month of January, we are without option in the
matter—we must, perforce, tarry as we best
may, content (if we can be) with the tardy
intimation sneaking out through the very audible
whisper of the Ministerial journal, at the begin-
ning of 1854, instead of at the beginning of 1853
—to the effect that, on the 19th of December, in-
structions were sent to our fleet in the Bosphorus
to proceed from Beycos into the Euxine. At
last ! It is the old story of this dear, old, fatuous
Aberdeenism. After the steed has been stolen
the stable door is to be carefully padlocked. After
Sinope has been reduced to a heap of charred
timbers—the ashes being copiously slaked with
blood—the maritime armament of Great Britain
is to steam out into the Black Sea to reconnoitre
and see how affairs are going on. We have sent
salve to the wounded—perhaps we are now to supply
wooden legs to the maimed. Everybody has heard
of our last glorious enterprise in the East, the
enterprise which is the laughing-stock of the rest
of the world, and will long be remembered among
the redoubtable achievements of the ABERDEEN
Coalition as—what do they call it ?—the Lint
Expedition. Another has now, it would seem,
been actually set on foot by the Cabinet of the
dear and excellent. What will it be desig-
nated ?—this wonderful and daring enterprise
—entered upon at last after ten or eleven
months of profound deliberation. Who knows
—perhaps the Telescope Expedition ! The
expedition for hovering about the ports of
Russia, peering into Odessa, and peeping into
Sebastopol—au expedition, the truest type of which
might be—a War-steamer with PAUL PRY on the
Paddlebox. We shall see. After the lapse of a
few more weeks it may be just barely possible—
England must, it would seem, content herself with
this vague futurity nowadays—it may be just
barely possible, within the limits of a chance, that
Aberdeenism will then, before much longer, con-
descend to vouchsafe the country the shadowy
semblance of an explanation. Perhaps !

We have seen the question mooted, if we mis-

take not, by some of "Our own Correspondents" in
America, " What will the Union do when it is
proposed to admit the Mormon State as a member
of the federation ?" Their misbelief might be
borne with, their semi-ecclesiastical Government
might be just bearable, but how possibly unite
in federal matrimony with those who scout the
Christian view of that "seed bed of the Republic ?"

In nothing has Christian civilisation been more
uniformly consistent than in abolishing polygamy,
and restricting men in the matrimonial relation to
the primeval arrangement of their CREATOR.
Even where divorce is too lightly conceded, and
where lax Court morals have winked at concu-
binage, yet even there the limits of legitimacy
both for mother and children were defined by the
record in Genesis, confirmed by our LORD, that he
" who made them at the beginning made them a
male and a female." In the United States public
opinion and feeling is as strong on this point as
in any part of Christendom. How, then, will the
respectable men of New England, and still more
its respectable females, tolerate a national union
with a State of bigamists and polygamists ? How
can they receive amongst them visitors who
may seduce their daughters to become the
thirteenth or the thirtieth chosen one of
a BRIGHAM YOUNG? HO ff permit their sons
under five-and-twenty to travel amongst a
community which teaches worse 'lessons than
a brothel itself ? Does any provision exist
in the constitution, veiling revolting wickedness
by the substitution of a phrase for a name, and
making it possible for a Mormon in any of the
present 31 States of the Union, to prosecute in
an action to which the validity of a thirtieth mar-
riage was esseAtial ? And should a Mormon with
his harem be compelled by circumstances to mi-
grate to one of the other states, would his mar-
riages with all of them be recognised by their laws,
and would even his presence be endured by
society ? Such questions, and many others, may
well perplex a States' man, looking forward to a
possible, and it may be not very distant, future.

D9es it, however, never occur to " Our own
Correspondents," and those who think with them,
that they are already in the closest union with
the most awful State abuses of Christian matri-
mony. The Slave States profess (after their
fashion) to teach their slaves Christianity,
and to make them Christians ; although,
of course, the negro pen, or the negro
chapel, are essential to impart the Christian
graces of humility and reverence for a white com-
plexion ; yet, side by side with this Christian in-
struction, slave laws deny to the slave a marriage
which no man can put asunder ; deny him a mar-
riage which legitimates his offspring, and which
protects parental claims to their guardianship.
Slave laws and slave practices, too, utterly set at
naught the Divine law of holy matrimony. They
encourage, more than indirectly, universal con-
oubinage. They protect the sale of virtuous

young females, agonised with the prospect, to
wretches as disgustingly licentious as the lord of
a Mormon bevy of worthless women. To the
anti-Christian crime of turning a rational and
immortal human being into a chattel, Slave States
add, with odious consistency, the crime of deny-
ing him the Christian rights of marriage. No-
thing were easier than to decree the inviolability of
negro marriage, and to prohibit for ever the
forcible separation of man and wife, of parents
and children ; but such law would be inconsistent
with the infernal practice (we can use no milder
epithet) of slavebreeding, and would almost ex-
tinguish the inland slave traffic. Either, then,
let not New York shrink from federal contact
with the Mormons, or let it repudiate all fellow-
ship with Slave States. Polygamy, revolting
as it is, does not add heart-rending cruelty
to its desecration of marriage. It degrades
it by a one-sided licentiousness—not compulsory,
however, on the party most wronged ; but slavery
breaks it up ainidst the groans and tears of parents
and children. Mormonism corrupts marriage,
but slavery martyrs it. From the former the cry
of the cities of the plain ascends to HEAVEN, but
from the latter the cry of the Apocalyptic
Babylon.

We write in all sober earnestness. We may
well believe that if the most offensive feature of
Mormonism should call the attention of respect-
able Americans afresh to the serious consideration
of the supreme importance to society of the prin-
ciples of Christian marriage, it will also react
upon the frightful and atrocious violation of those
principles in States now forming a part of the
Union. Mormonism, whenever the time may
come for claiming admission to the Union, may
well bid the objecting States to "cast first the
beam out of their own eye." It will bid them to
cast off, or to purify, the Slave States, before
they treat the Mormon State as an unworthy asso-
ciate. It were hard, indeed, to strike the balance
between those who believe and therefore practise
a licentious creed, and those who believe a purer
creed, but practise a worse licentiousness because
stained with cruelty.

We had hoped that the monomachia, or duel,
had been permanently banished from civilised
society—that persons moving in respectable
circles, and occupying distinguished positions,
could not be found who would endeavour to re-
vive the atrocious and happily obsolete practice.
It is true that we occasionally read with disgust
of half-educated and wholly barbarous savages
meeting with boivie-kuives and revolvers, in some
of the minor towns in America, firing at and
stabbing each other until one or both are either
killed or severely wounded. But even in Ame-
rica the practice is alike deplored and reprobated
by every right-minded man. It is only the
Hannibal Chollops who permit themselves to
seek an evil notoriety by such infamous means.
Never, perhaps, was a more decisive revolution
effected in , public opinion than on the subject of
duelling. Many years have not elapsed since,
day after day, the public journals contained long
accounts of what were termed " affairs of ho-
nour," with voluminous correspondence between
the so-called "friends " of the respective par-
ties. The nature of the offence, the punctili-
ousness displayed by the seconds, were all sub-
jected to the most stringent comments. The
man who was not willing to sacrifice his friend, or
who would neither give nor accept afair and reason-
able explanation was scouted from society, in place
of being applauded for his extraordinary moral
courage. No person who desired to take a part
in public affairs could hope to do so until he had
proved his " pluck" by " smelling powder," and
" winging his man." The aspiring barrister had
to fight his way into notoriety. A readiness to
" parade his opponent" at twelve paces was an in-
dispensable qualification more essential than
even a knowledge of law. All have heard of the
father who sent his son to commence life with 50/.
and a pair of duelling pistols, and of the career of

that son, who, by means of a truculent dispvition,

and a readiness to fight across a handkerchief at
any moment, was elevated to a Chief Justiceship,
and eventually became an Earl, with an immense
fortune and wide-spread domains. A " fighting
friend" should accompany every candidate to the

hustings. The "good and safe man" then re-
quired was one who had for some trivial cause

left his " opponent quivering on a daisy," and who
was ready" at a moment's notice to act in a
similar manner, on any or no provoca-
tion. Ministers of State, occupants of the
Judicial Bench, officials of every class fol-
lowed the fashion, and were ready to give or take
an invitation to " slugs and saw-handles" on the
cheapest terms. A Law-officer of the Crown might
be found, while his hands were actually reeking
with the blood of an acquaintance, friend, or rela-
tive, prosecuting a more vulgar assassin for a ho-
micide at a faction fight. Even a grave and ve-
nerable Judge, while explaining the law to a jury,
every member whereof had been " out" in due
course—a Judge, too, whose knowledge and inte-
grity were beyond suspicion, and whose ermine
was never sullied by the breath of slander—has
added the extra-judicial remark, that "he never
heard of a fairer duel" than that in which the pri-
soner at the bar was implicated.

Such was the state of affairs in
‘i‘ The good old times, when GEORGE the Third was
king."

Such was the practice under the Regency and the
Fourth GEORGE. It had not materially altered
even under our " Sailor. KING." It was reserved
for the reign of VICTORIA to abolish the infamous
practice, and, calling things by their right names,
to declare that every participator in a fatal duel,
'every man who went to the ground with a know-
ledge of what was about to take place, would, on
the death of either party, be guilty of wilful and
deliberate murder ; nay more, we believe that if
it could be shown that if the pistols were loaded
with ball, and that the parties intended to fire at
each other, and not merely to scare the pheasants
or minor game of the vicinity, they would be
guilty of firing at each other with intent to mur-
der, or at least to do grievous bodily harm, and
would, according to the circumstances, be liable to
the extreme penalty of the law, or to banishment
for life, or for a prolonged term of years, from
their native land.

And yet this is the practice which is about to
be regenerated under the auspices of the repre-
sentatives of England, Franee,,and Ameiica to
the court of Spain, and of a SPaiiith grandee of
tile first class. All parties in any degree fin-
plicated in the transaction are deserving of grave
censure. Even those who were aggrieved by the
gross misconduct of the diplomatic bullies, who
should rather have been encountered with the
cudgel and the horsepond, or even the cesspool,
than a duel with really distinguished and honour-
able men.

It is impossible to find the slightest excuse for
the behaviour of the Messrs. SOULE. Father and
son were equally reprehensible. The rawness of
youth could not even extenuate the folly of the
boy, who, with the nervous sensitiveness of a
parvenu, sought to resent the ridicule which he
fancied he heard cast on a feniale rela-
tive. The very complaint proved his degradation,
and showed that hel was unworthy of " gentle-
manly satisfaction." Even in the heyday of duelling
no person would take a message for the man who
avowed that it was by the most unpardonable
eavesdropping, by listening to the private conver
sation of strangers, that he received the offence
which he desired to resent. Mr. SOULE, junior,
should have been quietly kicked out of society, in
place of receiving any explanation from the Duke
of ALBA, and a summary expulsion should have
been awarded to his messengers.
It is said, however, that " one fool makes
many," and, in the present instance, the adage
received a new and powerful illustration. The
" old fool" was decidedly the worst of any. The
elder SOULE has shown that. he is totally unfitted
for any situation requiring temper and discretion.
It is to be regretted that the Marquis Dz TURGOT
should have forgotten himself so far as to accept
such a challenge, or that Lord HOWDEN, the Eng-
lish Ambassador, should have permitted himself
to be mixed up in a transaction in every respect
so discreditable. We cannot conceive that the
Government of the United States will lend any the