The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-04 00:00:00

,07 1-11,11, Irt 11,1

LONDON, MONDAY, JUNE 4, 1849.

Since the recess the House of Commons bas been
occupied in the necessary but by no means agreeable
duty of voting Supplies for the current year. It
would appear, from the thin attendance of Members,
and from the dispatch with which thousands and
tens of thousands were ' voted almost rub
ailentio, that the popular representatives con-
sidtred the proceedings as a mere matter
of form, and as if nothing were required but
that a sufficient number should be present to form a
House, and to assent to the demands of Ministers,
what<oever they might be. The intense anxiety for
financial reform outside the walls of Parliament seems
to be altogether forgotten, or the approach of the
period when Honourable Gentlemen will have to
render accounts of their legislative stewardships to
their respective constituencies. If the amounts so
sanctioned were to be levied directly on the possessors
of accumulated and realised fortunes, a greater
degree of anxiety would be manifested
to reduce the expenditure within reasonable limits,
and to avoid the errors and mistakes that are committed
every year, and which so materially increase the na-
tional burdens. But, unfortunately, while so large a
portion of the public revenue is obtained from the
proceeds of indirect taxation, while the great body of
the people, six-sevenths of whom are wholly unre-
presented, are supplying the means for defraying
the outlay, a carelessness and apathy will be mani-
fested similar to that which was so painfully per-
ceptible on Thursday and Friday evenings.
It would be impossible within the limit of a single
article to direct the public attention to the numerous
items sanctioned, almost any one of which would
afford abundant grounds for comment and discussion.
We find the dockyard expenditure still kept up, to
afford ample room for those costly and useless experi-
ments, the waste of labour and materials that would
speedily reduce any private firm, however opulent,
to bankruptcy. The constant alterations and con-
versions that are every day taking place, for which
no reason can be assigned, unless that it was essential
to find employment of some description or other for
the artificers engaged in the yards, are still to be con-
tinued. It is true that there has been a reduction on
the original estimate of last year, but it should not
be forgotten that the amount thus demanded
was very much beyond the usual average, and
that even the present estimate considerably
. exceeds the claims of former years that
1-1%% .i.pere is an increase of 220,0001. or 230,0001. per an-
_ - -xium for wages and stores beyond the sums required
Par these purposes some eight or ten years since.
Riiiese charges, which should be closely scrutinised,
- were sanctioned without a division, it being evident
thsit such tt proceeding would only have involved a
. 4

waste of public time without any beneficial result. 1
In the next vote, however, a greater degree of I
economy was manifested. The pension of the
widow of a Colonel in the army was withhe d,
because her deceased husband had been something
above the regulation age at the time of their marriage,
This unfortunate lady has been suffering the deepest
distress ; but Ministers should prove themselves
vigilant guardians of the public purse, and although
nothing could be alleged against her character or
conduct, and it could not be asserted that she was
not a fitting object for the public bounty, she is left to
sustain the privations and misery incident to poverty
that a few pounds per annum may be saved to the
national exchequer. The Ministers, in this instance,
seem to have reversed the rule of the followers of
ROBIN HOOD, who, according to WAMBA, set off a
thousand bezants, taken from a fat abbot by a crown,
given to a mendicant friar. They, on the contrary,
justify 220,0001. per annum wasted in the Dock-
yards, by 701. or 801. per annum abstracted from
a destitute and helpless widow.
Again, we find, after that splendid exhibition of
thrift and parsimony, new votes for Buckingham Palace.
No less than 763,2961. have been expended on that
precious specimen of British architectural taste, and
yet it is still admittedly unfit for a residence for our
SOVEREIGN, while new sums are annually absorbed
in repairs and alterations. Windsor Castle, too, it
appears, has cost no less than 1,516,000/. within the
last quarter of a century, but these trifling sums can
easily be spared, for Mrs. UNIACKE'S pension has been
saved to the nation, through the prudence of the Se-
cretary at War.

We need scarcely allude to the marble arch, which
was erected at a cost of 80,0001. some few years
since, and about which all that the Chancellor of the
Exchequer was enabled to state was, " that it was
quite clear that it could not stand where it was, but
that where it was to be put to was not quite decided,"
to show that useless expenditure and undoing work
recently executed is not peculiar to the Dockyards.
However, it would be wrong to cavil at such a trifle,
when the claim of a Colonel's widow for the usual
pension has been disallowed.
The most important, perhaps, of all the sugges-
tions, and that which touched the Government most
closely, was the proposition of the Hon. Member for
Oxfordshire for a general reduction of official sala-
ries. A stronger earnest could not be afforded of
the determination to suit the national expenditure to
the altered circumstances of the times, and the in-
creased value of money, than a beginning with the
incomes of the heads of the different depart-
ments. It is, unhappily, but too notorious
that the effect of the Acts of 1819 and 1844 has been
to increase the value of money by at least 20 or 30
per cent. All the necessaries and luxuries of life
may be obtained at much lower prices than was for-
merly the case, and surely Sir CHARLES WooD, who
lauds those statutes as the perfection of legislative
wisdom, cannot conscientiously receive a much
higher remuneraticn for his very valuable (!) services
than it was the intention of the Legislature to
bestow—and that increase occasioned by the very
Act, in favour of which and notwithstanding its vir-
tual suspension, he obtained the report of his judi-
ciously selected Committee, in opposition to the great
body of the evidence adduced before them. It would,
at least, exhibit the disinterestedness of Ministers in
a stronger light if they refused to benefit personally,
in consequence of the code that is so loudly and io
justly complained of by the community in general.

Anything which can at all tend to diminish the
chance of shipwreck in an age of rapid navigation,
cannot but be deserving of the most serious atten-
tion, especially in a great maritime country like
England. A remarkable pamphlet, having precisely
this tendency—namely, the diminution of danger to
vessels traversing the deep seas—has very recently
been published from the manuscripts of a man whose
name will ever be ranked among our most illustrious
navigators. The circumstances under which this ex-
traordinary treatise has appeared are somewhat ana-
logous to those which accompanied the publication of
another pamphlet written by a distinguished
member of the other chivalrous profession. Almost
immediately before Sir CHARLES NAPIER started for
the Asiatic peninsula to take the supreme command
of the British Indian army—the " Letter" was printed
in which he explained his project for the improve-
ment, or rather for the total re-organization of the
baggage corp. Almost immediately before the depar-
ture of the nephew of Sir J. Ross to the Arctic Circle, for
the purpose, if possible, of rescuing the survivors of
the last expedition from destruction—the "Treatise"
appeared in which he has expounded his theory of the
Deviation of the Mariner's Compass, and has es-
tablished several very secure and reliable rules
for its correction.* Now different, essentially dif-
ferent as the two schemes are in themselves—in their
tendency they are very little short of being identical.
The soldier has endeavoured to develope the military,
and the sailor the maritime system. One has
evinced a solicitude to diminish the perils of a cam-
paign, and in so doing to facilitate the tactics of war ;
the other has striven with like ardour to decrease the
dangers of a voyage, and, in so doing, to advance the
science of navigation. Having already more than
once drawn attention to the pamphlet by Sir CHARLES
NAPIER, a sentiment of j ustice would impel us to direct
general observation also to the pamphlet of Sir JOHN
Ross, were we not irresistibly incited to do so, irre-
spective of all such collateral stimulants, by the sin-
gular importance of the discoveries disclosed in it,
and by that pure and practical philanthropy which
has prompted the researches and inspired the treatise
of the renowned navigator.

Every one in the smallest degree acquainted
with the merest outlines of the History of Science
is perfectly familiar with the fact that the
Deviation of the Mariner's Compass has been
numbered among the inscrutable mysteries of
Nature, from the period when the polarity of the
magnetic needle was first perceived. The phenome-
non of the deflection of the magnetic needle has been
to the science of navigation what the librations of
the moon have been to the science of astronomy—
truths altogether unfathomable and incomprehensible.
At one time, indeed, the hope of satisfactorily ac-
counting for the deviations of the compass was scarcely
less wild and chimerical to all appearance than the
hope of finding out a correct system for the discovery
of longitude, or of accounting on philosophic
and demonstrable grounds for the eccentric
orbit of a comet. Ever since the publication,
however, of the memoir written by Captain FLINDERS,
a memoir which will be found recorded in the Philo-
sophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1805,
something of a confident expectation has been formed
that ultimately the cause of the aberration might be
detected. Still, although this expectation has existed
we have never yet found ourselves approaching its
realization. The theory of FLINDERS in some essen-
tial particulars was hardly less fanciful and was
barely so ingenious as the one propounded in a mo-
ment of awful emergency by the immortal discoverer
of America. Those wbo have ever lingered with
breathless curiosity over the biography of CoLumßus,
whether they have perused his history in the simple
diction of his descendant, or in the eloquent language
of WASHINGTON IRVING, can never have lost a recol-
lection of that incident—How, when threatened with
death and mutiny in the midst of the solitude of the
Atlantic, the great adventurer retired to his cabin,
and there in a few minutes contrived that inimitable
hypothesis of the Deviation of the Compass,
which, although perceptibly erroneous to the
philosopher, was sufficiently specious, in its
ingenuity, to dissipate the apprehensions of the insur-
gent mariners ! Decided as was the step in advance
taken by FLINDERS towards the elucidation of this
mysterious phenomenon in the needle, it was, never-
theless, as we have already observed, scarcely of one
jot more practical importance than this hypothesis of
COLUMBUS. According to the view taken of it by Cap'
tain FLINDERS, " the error of variation was produced
by the combined force of terrestrial magnetism, and of
the ferruginous attraction within the ship." So far the
scheme was undoubtedly admirable, and espe-
cially inasmuch as further experiments cor-
roborated the accuracy of the opi"nions
formed by FLINDERS. " still, however, as
Sir JOHN Ross himself observes in
his pamphlet
(p. 13), "much more information was wanted re-

• " A Short Treatise on the Deviation of the Mariner's
Compass; with Rules for it Correction, and Diagrams."
By Sir John Ross, C. 8., &C., &c., Cap
Royal Navy. Svo.tain in the
Is4l. pp. 40. Pelham Richardson; London,

specting this subject, for the purpose of discovering
a RULE that would enable us easily and simply to
find the true quantity of error in any place and
under all circumstances." " A desideratum," says
Sir JOHN Ross, further on (p. 14), " which I claim
to have completely established during my voyage of
discovery in 1818." The Rules here laid down by
our eminent navigator are the fruits of his experience.
They are no theoretical notions, but facts proven by
experiment. Their correctness has been tested again
and again, before Sir Jowl Ross has at last ven-
tured upon the publication of his treatise. To pro-
claim the importance, the vast national importance,
to a maritime country like Britain, of this brief and
very simple pamphlet, this pamphlet comprised within
forty octavo pages, we need only declare that it does
actually establish " rules by which the true course of
a ship may, in every position and under all circum-
stances, be obtained for every point of the com-
pass." How difficult safe navigation is under exist-
ing circumstances can be readily demonstrated by the
enumeration of such facts as the following—that
although about the middle of the sixteenth century
(when the deviation was first suspected) it was proved
to have an easterly tendency in England and its
vicinity, about the year 1658 or 1660 the direction
of the needle began to correspond with the meridian,
and gradually became more westerly. That of itself
indicates that the deviation is liable to fluctuate in
regard to Time. Other facts have shown clearly
enough that its fluctuation in regard to Place is
not less conspicuous. In the publication before us
it is clearly laid down that this variation (p. 11)
" differs in all parts of the world ;" (p. 17) that it may
be altered at pleasure, by placing the compass on the
binnacle, by shifting it from side to side, or by placing
it amidships half way between the mainmast and the
capstan ; and that " the angle of deviation is itself
materially affected by light, heat, and cold [by the
amount of the ship's attraction, an amount varying of
course with different ships, by increase or decrease
of variation and dip, by proximity to land or to
another ship], as well as by the humidity and
density of the atmosphere." Here is surely sufficien
to show the almost insuperable obstacles which pre-
vented Sir J. Ross from arriving at first at any safe or
satisfactory conclusion. Here, moreover, is enough
in all conscience to show the dangers surrounding the
mariner so long as he continues without some such
rules as those which are here at length laid down for
his future guidance. So great and peculiar is this
perilous liability of the best sailor to fall out of his
right course, that an occasion is recorded in the life
of Lord DE SAUMAREZ, the hero of the Gut of Gib-
raltar, when the Channel Fleet bore up in a storm
for Torbay; at a time when the position of the ships,
by means of their reckoning, were six degrees in error !
On that very occasion Sir JOHN Ross, then having
charge of the chronometers on board the Hibernia, made
an alowance of one point on the east course, and, in
consequence of so doing (p. 8), "landfall was made
to a mile, after an absence of six weeks, during which
time no land had been seen, and the fleet had been
chasing in various directions." After quoting thus
much, nothing further is necessary to demonstrate,
even to the unprofessional reader, the extraordinary
advantages of such rules as those here established.
For the rest, the Rules themselves being of an en-
tirely technical description, come less within the pro-
vince of a public journal than of a professional and
scientific treatise. To that treatise, therefore, we
confidently and earnestly direct the attention of the
Mariners of England.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris papers of Saturday and
yesterday.
The formation of the new Cabinet is completed, and
was officially announced to the Assembly on Satur-
day by M. ODILON BARROT.
The following is the composition of the new Ca-
binet :
M. ODILON BARROT Justice.
M. PAssY
M. DE FALLOUX Public Instruction.
General RULUIERES
M. DE TRACY Marine.
M. LACROSSE Public Works.
The above, it will be seen, were all members of the
late Cabinet. The new Ministers are :

M. DUFAURE lnterior (in the place of M.
Leon Faucher).
M. DE TocQuEvira,E Foreign Affairs (in place of
M. Drouyn de L'huye).
M. LANJUINAIS Agriculture and Commerce
(in place of M. Buffet).
Marshal BUGEAUD refused to enter the Cabinet
unless the command of the National Guards were
separated from that of the army, but the PRE-
SIDENT, or rather M. DE FALLOUT, refused to
diminish by one jot or tittle the power of the
Legitimatist General CHANGARNIER, and Mar-
shal BUREAUD consequently does not enter the
Cabinet. The department of Foreign Affairs has
been refused both by General BEDEAU and M. DE
REMUSAT, the Roman question being the difficulty
with each. It is said that M. DE FALLOUX has com-
pletely succeeded in his intrigue as far as the affairs
of Rome are concerned, and that General OUDINOT
has been ordered to force his way into Rome, and to
restore the priestly domination without delay.
The PRESIDENT'S Message (which has been drawn
up by MM. THIERS and MOLE) is to be delivered
to-day.
M. DUPIN was on Saturday inaugurated as Presi-
dent of the Legislative Assembly.
The following is the report of the proceedings at
the opening of the Assembly :
M. de Keratry rosy and said,—Gentlemen Representa-
tives of the Republic, the honourable selections which
you made in yesterday's sitting have led me to desire,
even more ardently than before, that the moment should
arrive when I might be permitted to resign my tem-
porary functions into hands of persons more firm, more
able, and more exercised than I am. (A voice on the
Left—And more impartial.) I have awed according to
the measure of the strength which Providence has con-
ferred upon me.—(Approbation on the Right; ironical
laughter on the Left.) God forbid that I should presume
to lay down any programme, or trace out any line of
conduct in the presence of an Assembly on the oenches
of which are seated able men, accustomed to business,
who have arrived at the highest grades of the civil and
military orders, and been honoured over and over again
by the confidence of their fellow-citizens.—(Murmurs
on the Left.) Certainly, I should never dream of
any such presumption. As to you, Monsieur le President,
and you, gentlemen secretaries, I have not the slightest
doubt that you will worthily answer the expectations of
your country, which now calla you by my voice to this
chair, and to these seats of honour; they cannot be more
fitly occupied. This Noble Chamber—(Loud exclamation
on the Lefr.)

A voice from the same quarter—we are not now in
the Chamber of Peers.

M. de Keratry—This Noble Chamber by which you
have been selected by a majority—almost unanimous—
(lnterruption)—has for pledge your character and the
sentiments iu which it intends itself persisting. I have
now to call on the members of the definitive bureau to
come forward and take their places.—(Hear, hear.)
M. Dupin, sen., then ascended the steps leading to the
estrade, followed by the members of the bureau. The
Honourable Gentleman wore his distinctive ribbon of a
Representative of the people, and near it the large
crochet of a grand cross of the Legion of Honour. The
two Presidents interchanged the customary accolade,
after which M. de Keratry and the provisional secretaries
withdrew, the new comers assuming their places.
M. Dupin, sen., then, after taking the chair, rose and
said :—Gentlemes and Honourable Colleagues, in dis-
placing in the chair our honourable senior representa-
tive, who has fulfilled his difficult functions with so much
devoted—(Interruption)—I cannot help making a pre-
liminary reflection. The office of President of the Na-
tional Assembly is not merely an immense honour, it is
a charge imposing most heavy duties, always difficult to
be fulfilled, but particularly so at the period in which
we live. As a man belonging to the law I should wish
to behold order reigning everywhere, and the regulations
always observed with fidelity.—(Hear.) Independently
of the general law which prevails outside, and is obliga-
tory on us as on all other citizens, each Assembly has its
own peculiar laws—the regulations which it imposes on
itself, and by which it contracts the obligation to
obey
itself. The existing regulations, the viola-
of which always leads to disorder, and
viola-
tion
the strict and impartial execution of which is confided
to t
president, will immediately call for your
aHowever
in order to decide what modifications
t enthrieon,
decidesho wn
theo bep inecessary.nt,
shall
en
the
at
eAxp
s-serience has
em bl map
with all the firmness I possess, to have them
strictly
observed, and I will employ all tae force which
ss to maintain them during the continuance, for-
tunately exceedingly short, of my laborious function,..—
preosssents
Voice
on
the Left—" Vie hope so.") The tribune,
gentlemen,ought to be free—free for all; the minority
has an interest in such being the case even more than
the majority. Bah sides must consequently learn t,)
listen with calm, even to what may b. e disnleasing—to
express ourselves with consideration ter others, and to
submit afterwards with resignation to votes which ac-
quire the character of law, and consequently are invested
with all the force of national sovereignty. Gentlemen
and honourable colleagues, the acts of this Legislative
Assembly must power fully influence the destinies of the
country. Constituted as we are as a Republic, let us not
forget the union of the great powers of the state—
(Loud interruption on the Left).
A Voice from the same quarter—There is only one at
present.
M. Dupin, senior, in continuation—ls one of the first
guarantees of public tranquillity—
A Voice on the Left—What do you mean by your
great powers?

M. Dupin. sen.—l call so those powers which have
been elected by universal suffrage, and which emanate I
directly from the sovereignty of the people.—(Hear,
hear.) Let us not lose sight of these two facts, which
are alike certain—the Republic must reassure all inte-
rests and rights which may be menaced; but also fac•
tions must not be permitted to attack or menace the
Republic.—(Murmurs on the Lrft.) Thus, then, may
Providence be cur aid. Vive la Rep-üblique!
This cry was repeated loudly from (very part of the
Assembly.
The following official note appears in the illoniteter
du Soir and the Patric :—" The National, in an
article entitled ' Affaires Italiennes,' affirms that the
personal policy of the PRESIDENT of the French
Republic seems to tend to complicate the events
which are being accomplished in the Peninsula, and
in support of this affirmation announces that an
emissary of the PRESIDENT has recently been sent off
to the French camp, with secret instructions calcu.
lated to counteract the too liberal tendencies of M.
LESSEPS. These assertions are false and calumnious.
We are authorised to contradict them in the most
formal manner."

The following is the final result of the election for
Algeria :—" MM. HENRY DIDIER, EMILE BAR-
RAULT, and DE BANCE are elected. M. EMILE DE
GIRARDIN has failed."
BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE
LONDON STOCK-EXCHANGE, JUNE 2.

Boulogn;QAmiens, 66%—Northern of France, 914
Paris and Rouen, 19—Paris and Strasbourg, 414—Sambre
and Meuse, 3.

SPAIN.

Madrid journals of the 29th ult. have arrived.
The Duke of MONTPENSIER is about to purchase a
large estate of the Government in the neighbourhood
of Seville.
MADRID BOLSA, MAT 29.—The Three per Cents.
were done at 23i for paper; the Five per Cents. at
101; the Debt Without Interest at 3,1 ; and the Cou-
pons at si.