The Sun.
London, England, 1838-08-30 00:00:00

gulation of women on the scaffold, under any circumstances,
is a practice so barbarous and brutal, that nothing could
make a civilised people tolerate it for a moment, but that
force of custom which too often takes away the horror of
cruel and demoralising spectacles by rendering them fami-
liar..S; The people of England have had their reflection
awakened upon this subject. They no longer view with
indifference a practice as abhorrent from manhood as it is
disgraceful to civilisation. They see in the butchery of
women by the sword of the law nothing but unmitigated
barbarism. They cannot respect the laws which sanction
such a practice, or feel any reverence for the counsellers of
the Crown who wish to perpetuate them. But of all the ex-
hibitions of this sort which can shock the better feelings of
mankind, the sacrifices of women who are the victims of
male libertinism, encouraged by the bastardy clauses of the
Maithusian law, are the most revolting. Those infamous
clauses, which set justice and morality at defiance, arc
likely to fulfil the predictions to which they formerly gave
rise, by being copiously sprinkled with human blood. The
seducer and betrayer of weak and confiding woman is co-
vered by the Whig law with an ignominious security, while
the unhappy being that has fallen from virtue, comfort, and
honour, under the basest arts of the perfidious libertine,
and who, in the frenzy of desperation, stifles the cries of
nature in a mother's heart, is dragged to the felon's cell
and the murderer's scaffold, and, cast out from the lap of
society, perishes unpitied—no, not unpitied : the sympathies
of the people surround the dying victim—their execrations
fall upon the law and the legislators. They breathe curses
deep and loud upon the cause of the two-fold homicide.
They see in a law which protects the seducer from a share
in the penal consequences of his own licentiousness the in-
strument of destruction of the mother and the child. They
sce the blood of both rise up to Heaven, in testimony against
this atrocious law. When we alluded before to the cases of
the two women lyin,4 under sentence of death at Chester,
we steed that a petition for mercy had been forwarded to
the Queen, which was signed by the rector of the parish in
which one of the women resided, six other clergymen and
ministers, two county magistrates, and a large number of
respectable tradespeople. We gave an extract or two from
that petition, which proved that the crime for which Lord
John Russell seems to think it right that the blood of these
women :,hould be taken was attributed, not merely in the

popular mind, but by the voice of intelligent and reflecting
persons, to the operation of the New Poor-law. We have

since seen some observations in the Chester Couran

whereby it would appear that the Secretary for the Home
Department has returned, if any, an unfavourable an-
swer to the prayer of that petition. The worthy fenc-
•ionary is now taking his holiday pastime i❑ the Isle of
Wight. Perhaps, while resting from the extraordinary
fatigues of a session which meet ludicrously realised the
fable of " the mountain and the mouse," he does not

like his lordly repoe to be broken in upon by the import
tunities of the people, praying that Government may take
some other means to prove that it is not wholly inactive
in vacation time than by working the machinery of the gil-
lows ! However this may be, we observe that at Chester the
shooting and the hanging season this year ere expected to
commence together—Dinars Jones and Ann Byrom are
ordered for execution on the first of September—the day
on which our sporting Ministers prepare to open their
partridge-shooting campaign. Thus they allow hanging to
the mob and shooting to themselves. To the brutal part
of the pepulation an execution is pastime—to the goo lit is
a subject of intense disgust. How comprehensive is the
aare of our Liberal Government for " the national sports"
~," the cceotry, seeing it is ordered that the slaushter of
aannen and wild fowl are to begin together, thus test:ng
the efficacy of the Nti'hig Poor-law and Game-law by
simultaneous experiment ! " With feelings of heartfelt
sorrow," sa!s the Chester Courant, " we understainl that
the exert ions which had been made to stay the eeecution of
fl nah Jones and Ann Byrom, who were sent:: :eel to death
for child murder at our last Assizes, and whose execution
..yes fixed for Saturny, the first of September, Las been
hitherto fruitless." The same Joureal bears ae
strongest testimony possible to the previous character or
the youngest of these women, Dillith Jones, WllOlll it
desceilees as awaiting her approaahing fate with that
uious resignation known only to those who have made their
ocarte with their Creator through the atoning bh;od of
the Redeemer. But we will g7ve its account of her
previous character in its own words :—"Dinah Jones i,
but 21 years of age, had only 61. a year wages, out of
which she Lad to pay 2s, a week towards the mainta n nice
of her infant, who, he it recollected, was separated from
her, which prevented the operation of some motives that
could not have failed to have strenghtened her feelings to-
wards it. We have seen a memorial cf the girl's character
during the whole time she was in service, signed by all her
employers, than which nothing can be more sati4actory.
The all declare her to be an excellent servant, distinguished
for kindness and humanity, and remarkably correct. It is
distressing on reading this important document to observe the
unfortunate occurrence of circumstances which prevented the
individuals who have signed it from attending at the trial to
afford the unhappy woman thebenelitof that decidedand sotie-
I factory evidence to character which is attested in this me-
morial. She is very gentle in her manners, exceedingly
calm and mild in disposition, and, in appearance, the very
last person that could be supposed capable of performing
the cruel deed of which she has been found guilty." If
Lord John Russell persists in advising the Queen against
extending mercy to this poor young woman and her fellow
convict—if he refuses to avert from Chester the exhibition
of that disgusting tragedy, or mob pastime, or whatever it
is to be called, with which that town is threatened on the
Ist of September—we do not think the reflection will here-
after sweeten that hour when the hand that uncrowus
Monarchs disrobes the Statesman, and calls the Judge to
meet the victim of his inexorable sentence before an un-
erring tribunal.—Morning Herald.
There is a story told of a certain Frenchman, a man of
rank and some pretension to science, who had written a
work under the title of " Travels in Sicily." Before pub-
lication he thought fit to submit the MS. to a person of less
imagination, but more sober judgment than himself, who,
after an attentive perusal, favoured his confiding friend
with the following counsel :—" I advise you, good Sir, by
no means to commit yourself by publishing what you have
written as a book of travels, since something of history,
science, or accurate observation, might be expected from a
man of your rank and station ; but your work need not,
therefore, be lost ; it is light and amusing enough, and you
have but to add a few pretty prints, and change the title
to a' Sicilian Romance,' and it will do very well as a book
for the ladies." We introduce this little story at
present, not as apropos des buttes, but as apropos of
the report of the Irish Railway Commissioners, about
which—owing to the very laudable industry of the Mini-
sterial papers—the London public have heard so much
within the last week. We think it is to be regretted that
these most amiable and respectable, as well as highly
scientific Commissioners, did not follow the plan of Mon-
sieur le Compte who wrote about Sicily, and receive good
advice pretty much to the same effect. If their work were
entitled " A Rhapsody on Railroads," and prettlily illus-
trated not only by diagrams and sectional drawings, but by
coloured sketches, actual and anticipative, of the country
through which the principal lines are intended to pass, it
might probably have a very great run in Whig drawing-
rooms. The Marchioness of Lansdowne, and the Lady
Holland would no doubt have it on their tables, and cause
it to be made one of the topics of conversation for at least
two evenings. Lady Osborne would perhaps find out
that she could kive some valuable evidence about it to a
Committee of the House of Lords ; and Lady Morgan—
unless she should happen to regard it as an unfair public
interference with her line of business—would perhaps
devote a forenoon to hammering out an evening impromptu
in its favour. But it is now, alas ! something of the latest
to indulge in these speculations. The Railway Commis-
sioners, instead of taking good advice, and publishing their
Report as a rhapsody, have acted without advice, and the
rhapsody has been actually published as a Report. Thus
f romantic speculation and this curious jumble of meritorious philanthropy and me-
chanical mathe-
maticalphilosophy detail, is likely to do some harm and no good. As
—o
a scientific poem—into which form it might easily have
been thrown—it would have been respectable ;as an offi-
cial document it is ridiculous. What Ireland requires,
upon a great scale, is not facilities for her commerce, but
commerce for her facilities. It may he said that facilities
would bring the commerce. That was said long ago, when
the two great canals were projected, which now proceed
from the sea at Dublin to the very heart of the
concernswere
panticipations
to re g at
hi- dingei r
o-rti hg ei
nma
l. B
country. These were great works, and magnificent
and only a reduced interest to those who lent moneyshauretl moltndbeterhssee,
security of the works. The noble docks of the ‘-' Grand
Canal," which are close to the sea, grow crops of duck-
weed upon the surface of the water—the warehouses
upon the bunks are, in the most un-Irish manner, sinking
T gently end peaceably into decay. he fact- is, that, ex-
cept areen[s the Presbyterians in the north, and a few
hundred Quakers aeatacred here and there in the south,
there is nothing like those habits of accumulation
which make it possible to take advatitaiie of great fa-
cilities for commercial enterprise. The great canals were
and are just such a benefit to Ireland as a brewer's dray
and team of horses would be to a milkman who had to
leave three half pints at the door of each of his eusto' °
And this also would be the ease with railroads, eau >titißero'.
two or three lives where there is something like cceolre P•••°1
activity. The ingenious, and of course, impartial,
.ers.ia
- esnal4 of the Ministerial party lay very great stress,
rsP,
min!, umicr !be
the vast importance of railways to the
Jo—.
epan ti:e vast superiority
not only upesi
regeneration of Irelanu ...l.'
...„_. _ .
t.). a comb:lied and g..neral system o,
Weeesion of Guverairient over separate and isolate t: !!71;
directin of joint-stock companies. Now we
underxlit
iuestioo for a country havinf a
ttilli4e t
It
is 3
rice
co