The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-16 00:00:00

ny public life, yet I receive it as an assurance that you
ippreciate the motives, although you may not all agree
vith me in every measure I have felt it my duty to re.
!ommend to the Crown. I take it as ao assurance that
roe believe that I hal no other object in view than to
,dvance the public well-b ‘ing of the country ; and,
while I would not disturb the harmony and good feeling
,f this meeting by introducing anything of a coutrover-
ial character, I cannot but be cinsoious of the kindness
•ou have shown, nor fail to receive your appreciation of
ny motives, as a proof th%t yon disregard and despise
he calumnies that have been heaped—."
Che remainder of the slntence, we are told, was
frowned in cheers. The words wore uttered with a
warmth which appealed to the generosity of the
bearers, and the appeal had effect. Really, as
Englishmen, we are almost ashamed of our country,
.hat Sir Robert should have to go so far north in
pest of a character, and that a fanny Scotch city
should beat the warm south in the chivalry of political
sentiment. The Chief whom so many abuse, and so
many more regard with cold admiration, will cer-
tainly take refuge from foes and from friends in
Aberdeen. Why are we so backward? We have
only one apology. We plead a peculiar feature of
the British character. In the high mind of this
country, and as regards that greater class of men with
whom that high mind is conversant, there is little
praise or blame. We do not call our great statesmen
either heroes or scoundrels, but assume them to be
more practical than the former, and absolutely inca-
pable of being the latter. So we leave panegyrics to
flatterers, and abuse to a class which we forbear from
describing. The people of England know that the
:ast great act of Sir Robert's political life was not
only wise but necessary; and that Sir Robert showed
tome intelligence in seeing that necessity, and some
courage in providing against it. But as to motives,
they are content to let the question alone, excepting
,nly that constant presumption that the motives of a
good act cannot be very bad.
CHRONICLE.—The Wanderer of Vienna pub-
ishos a case of barbarity, perpetrated by Austrian
soldiers on a Hungarian lady, which can scarcely be
credited by civilized men. It is one of the most cruel
and unmanly outrages recorded iu history; and no
retribution can be too severe for the wretch who has
committed it. As it now stands, it is a stain on the
whole nation ; but we trust that Austria will speedily
disclaim all sympathy with such crimes, by inflicting
the most extreme penalty on the criminal. Its pu-
nishment ought to be' made a point of national honour
ind morality; and we will not doubt that the Em-
peror will cause justice to be done to the unhappy
lady, or that he will efface from his country the blot
)f such a son—else his truest friends must withdraw
from him in horror at a concurrence at once unkingly
and inhuman. The letter which Madame de Maders-
bach has written is remarkable for it temperate
tone, and for a certain patience of despair far more
melancholy than the most vehement complaints.
Without parade, without invective, she tells how a
detachment of Leichtenstein's Light Horse, commanded
by a captain, whose name is not given, entered Rusk-
berg, where she resided, and in the neighbourhood of
which 10,000 Hungarians had surrendered at discre-
;ion two days before. Without charge, and without
the form of a trial, or even of an examination, she
was suddenly torn from her home, dragged into the
!entre of a square formed by the troops, and there, in
broad daylight, in the presence of the whole popula-
tion, publicly, cruelly, brutally flogged. Her hus•
hand, maddened by such atrocities, blew out his
brains, and this last tragedy so excited the people
that they would have killed the officer, had he no
not been too well guarded. We cannot wonder that

the husband was unable to survive the indignities in-
flicted on the mother of his children. It must make
the heart of the coldest man burn with indignation
merely to picture to himself that scene, as occurring
to a woman of any age or class ; and still more so
when occurring to a lady so delicately nurtured, and
io respected and beloved as Madame de Madersbach
appears to have been. The cultivated and delicate-minded
gentlewoman exposed to the coarse eyes of vulgar
men, her flesh striped and bleeding with the whip,

her womanly delicacy outraged, her matronly dig-
nity insulted, sole and body alike exposed to torture
to gratify one brutal man ! This were shame enough
to any age or to a savage race, but it is intolerable
lisgrace to the Europe of the nineteenth century. In
-ruth, there has been too much of this. It is time
hat the Austrian Government inquired fully, and
punished sternly all who have so disgraced the name
,f their country, and so violated her laws, in order
o satisfy universal humanity of their horror and dis-
g,,ust at such barbarities. We trust soon to hear an
•mphatic and complete refutation of the charge, or,
being found true on investigation, to learn that the
Government has awarded the greatest degree of
punishment to the cowardly slave who has thus
flitraged every feeling of manhood and of de-
cency. Such men are not fit to live. They
ire weeds that only serve to cumber the ground—
poisonous parisites that destroy the best tree. They
lisgrace humanity, and make honest men blush at'
their common existence—they give the lie to him
who believes in good, and so deform the world
that they are unfit to breathe the air of Heaven, for
their lives are out of tune with the harmony which
God has instituted. The Austrian Government must

feel the necessity of arresting the course of these
atrocities, and of showing, by punishments, its repu-
liation of such abandoned wretches. One prompt act
of this nature would be sufficient to deter others,
tod would free the Austrian name from such foul

blots as else cannot be obliterated by ages. But let
us now look to home. An accusation, such as we
certainly never expected to be made against an Eng-
ishman, has been laid before the Emigration Com-
missioners against the surgeon of an emigrant ship,
called the itamilies. He is charged with flogging,
by his own hand, four or more female emigrants
luring the outward voyage to South Australia. The
case has not been full investigated, but it is asserted
that four girls—who may have been disorderly and
mischievous, and who probably were so—were flogged
by the surgeo❑ in the presence of the captain and two
assistants. The backs of the poor women, it is said,
were examined by a respectable matron, who
states that she found them scored and wealed with
large thick stripes, black and blue, and that " one
was bleeding.' Granting them to have been
troublesome—granting them guilty of very gross
misconduct--no possible excuse can be offered for a
mode of punishment so utterly barbarous and unmanly.
Surely there are restrictive and coercive measures for
women superior to flogging them by men I Surely
a strict moral discipline is better than an exercise of
brutal force, and a judicious mixture of kindness and

authority more effective, as an engine of control, than
placing them on a level with dogs and horses, striking
them with the whip to teach them reason, and expos-
ing their persons to teach them modesty and woman-
liness of demeanour I The inhumanity of this mode
of punishment is so revolting, the indelicacy so shock-
ing, the preponderance of the lower element of man
in degrading, that we rank this action higher in the
scale of atrocity than a larger legal offence committed
from the impulse of passion. It is particularly bad,
occurring where and how it has occurred. When

Goverment has been taking pains to make emigration
inviting to the poor, it is excessively annoying
that any cruel and unmanly ruffian should have
the power to destroy their confidence in the ar-

rangements made for their welfare, and to make
them cling to poverty and wretchedness at home
rather than risk exposing themselves to such indigni-
ties. Women are wanted in the colonies to an extent
that leads to unheard-of discomfort and disaster; and
the numerical inequality of the sexes is one of the

peculiar hardship 3 of an emigrant's life. To entice
them out by every kindness and every indulgence, as
far as is morally healthful—to make them feel pro-
tected and cared for, has been the Government en-

deavour, and hitherto it has worked tolerably well. A
brutal, cowardly act can destroy this endeavour, and
four petty individuals damagq the best and most
humane designs of an Executive. It cannot be that
an inquiry will not be instituted into this affair with-
.

out delay-. If the charge be false, it is due to the
accused; if true, it is due to the Government, to
thosepoor victims, and to the nation. No accusations

of this kind ought to be disregarded. It involves

grave consequences—graver even than the mere viola-
tion of humanity, and it must not be lost sight of till
it has ben clearly proved or clearly disproved. And, if
proved, a comniensurate, swift, and unfailing punish-
ment must be awarded to men who have disgraced the
name of Englishmen, degraded themselves below the
rank of savages or brutes, and placed themselves in
direct opposition to the wise and beneficent designs of
Government.

BLAGROVE'S Rooms.—Last evening Mr. Henry
Nicholls gave his entertainment here to a highly de-
lighted auditory. The " reading" for this evening was
Shakspere's Othello, and never have we heard it better
read, not excepting Mr. Charles Kemble, than it was
hat evening by Mr. li. Nicholls; there was a purity of
style that at once proclaimed the scholar and the gen-
tleman ; there was no " point making"—all was given
with a correctness and beauty which proved to demon-
stration that " the bard of Avon" was thoroughly under-
stood and duly appreciated by the talented reader.
The Princess Maude sailed yesterday morning at
nine o'clock from Dover to Calais, with three carriages
and seventy-one passengers, and returned from Calais at
3 45 P.M., with one carriage and forty-three passengers,
including the Grand Duchess of Baden, and suite, who
left for London by the South-Eastern Railway at six
o'clock.