The Sun.
London, England, 1849-08-27 00:00:00

Such is the system now predominant. It stands out
in all its naked deformity. It is no less the instrument
of a President of a Republic than of an Autocrat of all
the Russias. We in this fortunate country find some
difficulty in realising to ourselves the exact state of
things that is understood by a state of siege. Aecus-
tomed as we are to the equable rule of law, we can hardly
picture to ourselves the arbitrariness and brutality of
martial sway. We perfectly agree with the limes, in an
urticto of Mouday last, that " the euuttul of armed
power and military authority is a bad substitute fur
established laws and civil justice;" but we cannot
admit that "in many parts of Europe the armies alone
have saved society, and saved whatever remains of free-
dom." The evils of seditious turbulence are at the worst
but transitory; those of military despotism are perma•
nent and enduring. They are destructive not merely of
freedom for the moment, but of all hopes of freedom
hereafter. But, in point of fact, on which side has
terrorism been found? What excesses have anywhere
been committed by the people, at all comparable to
the atrocities of Ilaynau, or even to the Prussian exe-
cutions by court•martial ? On this subject we have
valuable testimony i❑ the accounts that have from time
to time appeared in moderate German papers; and,
above all, in that Diary of Auerbach concerning the
events of last October at Vienna, of which a translation
was recently published enabling the English reader to form
a correct opinion concerning the present condition and
future prospects of Central Europe. Auerbach is not at
all disposed to believe that armies " have alone saved
society, and saved whatever remains of freedom."
His reflections on the closing of the Diet after the
capture of Vienna by Prince Windischgratz are of a
different character.

" The Diet closed by the troops I all the boasted
liberty of the people is illusory and an empty cheat, so
long us the soldiery are held in constant readiness to cut
short the debates with violence at any moment. In all
the movements, in Germany, therefore, the chief object
of attack is the military power. We have been, and
are still, kept in thraldom, by this povier. Notwith •
standing all the professions of attachment and good
faith, of the common interests of the people and the
princes, the power of the princes is still supported by
bayonets, and the popular spirit is everywhere subjected
and kept under by force of arms The
State has abandoned its proper centre of gravity in the
Diet, and transferred it to the army. The struggle will
now begin anew."

Pending that sure recommencement of the struggle,
we shall have an opportunity of observing how far the
new theory of foreign policy adopted by a large section
of the mercantile classes in this country, and their
oracles the Times and Lord Aberdeen, is a sound one;
whether, as they assert, England ought to hold herself
aloof, whatever infractions of international law may be
committed by other states, and not even to raise her
voice in remonstrance, lest she should incur the hostility
of some powerful sovereign. We shall learn by experi-
ence (may the lesson not be taught too late!) whether
the traditionary policy of England, which watched with
a keen eye and upheld with a firm hand the balance of
power in Europe—the policy of Cromwell, of William
the Third, and of Chatham—is, as we are informed by
these modern luminaries, an unnecessary interference in
affairs which do not concern us, and an excess of pre-
caution against imaginary dangers from which our in-
sular position already sufficiently protects us. For our
own part, we may perhaps, until this new-fangled
doctrine shall have been confirmed by experience,
be permitted to entertain some doubts respecting it.
We may question whether, even on a mere' calculation
of profit and loss, the balance would not have been in
favour of a system which should have encouraged the
establishment of constitutional governments and opposed
the extension of restrictive tariffs, the usual concomi-
tants of despotic rule; which should have maintained
the dignity of England, even at the risk of a depression
of some eighths per cent. in the funds; and by which she
would have discharged the duty in our judgment im•
posed by Providence on those to whom power is en-
trusted, the duty of watching over advocating, and en-
forcing the rights of the weak. It may be that the
conquest of Hungary, and the establishment of Russian
predominance in the east of Europe, will not be followed
immediately by the closing of the Bosphorus to British
commerce ; it may be that Hamburgh will not share the
fate of Cracow ; and that an European war will not be
produced by an attempt upon the part of Austria, sup-
ported by Russian bayonets, to re-establish her supre-
macy in Germany. But we must not forget that a
nation is permitted, as little as an individual, to violate
duties with impunity ; and that for the one, as for the
other, a day of retribution, it may be late or it may be
early, will surely arrive.

A PLEASURE VAN ON FIRE.—On Friday afternoon,
a large pleasure van, returning with a party from Hamp-
ton Court, in passing through Hammersmith was disco-
vered to be on fire, it is supposed from one of the smokers
having dropped a light amongst the straw strewn at the
bottom of the vehicle. Some of the female occupants
were severely burnt, their dresses igniting before they
could make their escape. From the rapidity s ith which
the Imes travelled, and the difficulty of procuring water,
the van, with the exception of the wheels and axles, was
entirely consumed, and the party, some of whom seemed
to suffer severely from the burns they had sustained, had
to seek another conveyance.
IMPORTANT TO MONEY ORDER HOLDERS.---After
Friday next, the Act, 11th and 12th Vict., c. 74, comes
into operation for the regulation of the money order
department of the Post-office. By its provisions, all
money orders not presented for payment within twelve
months after being granted, become null and void; for
example, a money order granted on the 31st of August,
1841, if not presented for payment on or before the 31st
instant, will be valueless, as will all orders granted ante-
cedent to the first-named period.

Never is one's risibility so much excited as when
there is a great dearth of news, and our brethren of
the press metamorphose their pens into forceps, and
devote themselves to the obstetric mysteries of usher-
ing into the world what they variously christen
"Freaks of Nature," " Lusus Naturm," " Monstro-
sities," "Wonderful Phenomena," "Strange Fish,"
"Prodigious Cabbages," and so on ad infinitum.
Last week's papers were more than ordinarily proli-
fic of these now ordinary conceptions. The Scotch
vied with the English, and the Irish could not excuse
themselves from taking part in the struggle. We
had noticed innumerable circumstantial records of
prodigies in air, earth, and sea, in some score papers
before the thought struck us of presenting our
readers with an assortment. We afterwards, how-
' ever, clipped out in the others over which we were
looking quite sufficient to answer our purpose. Be-
ginning with our own county, then, we find in the
papers published in a town within sixty miles to the
west of Hull, a precise description of a singular pig,
which (be it observed !) was one of a litter of ten
from a sow (as if it could be one of a litter from a
nn
gi
a t' unprdl ea placed
dm
andei n-
wtbnht ohheat
eahrrte.
centre
likehlan offte
fact
an
itfat
side:
hewoeppanahrdl
was
elephant's
ootot
isnsh
proboscis
trunk
eye,rnouoofns tkr i whichli
n wasml wasoi
through this trunk it breathed whilst it lived, about
o
ten minutes ; below this was a second malformation,
taherhminnoscternonsr;intuhae
ani-
mals der jaw was like that of the monkey ; and to con-
clude, one ear was about twice the length of the
we have ever seen." The conclusion who will
dispute ? The little pig is to ornament a museum.
A. Bedford paper has more pluck, however, than to
be outdone by any paragraph of the kind, no matter
how marvellous, and therefore announces that " Last
week, a mare, the property of a gentleman of Isfield,
threw a foal, displaying the singular phenomenon ofhaving no fore legs. By direction of the owner of
the mare this extraordinary progeny was killed."
Murder of a progeny ! High treason beyond a
doubt! It is not fitting that all oddities should be
porcine and equine, dead or killed, and therefore a
South of England journal announces that "there is
now living within half-a mile of Bromsgrove, Wor-
cestershire, four children born at one birth, all girls.
The woman, at her previous confinement, bore her
husband three children, the whole of whom are also
alive, making seven children within two years. As
this very tardy increase of the population of her
Majesty's dominions renders it doubtful whether the
country will not be depopulated, a fashionable London
paper lets out the secret that in the month of Octo-
ber next (we might as well, perhaps, add on Hull
Fair day), the marriage of a certain Earl with a cer-
tain titled lady is to take place. A Glasgow paper,
not content with these particulars of belluine and
human existences, is ambitious to narrate what may
live in a living woman. One of the sex feminine "in
Ardrossan parish, having taken, in the dark, a
draught of cold water, her stomach became deranged,
and two months afterwards she vomited an eel, three
inches long, which continued alive for two days, and
which has been preserved in a bottle as a curiosity."
If one beast can live in one part of the body, surely
another may in another, and therefore we learn that
" a little girl, aged four years, daughter of Mr. H.
Taylor, of Clitheroe, on the 29th of May, accident-
ally got a snail-shell fast in one of her nostrils. It
defied all attempts at extraction until Wednesday
week, when the child was seized with a violent fit of
sneezing, during which the shell fell to the ground."
Supplementary to this may be cited the substance of
one of the ps.', graphs which we did not extract. " A
mouse was s: -out to make a prey of a muscle, when
the muse' - elosed, and the mouse hobbled away with
the muscle fast to one of its legs." Space would tail
us to tell of apples weighing four pounds nine ounces
avoirdupois, hollyocks measuring three and a half
yards round, and sturgeons four feet in girth and
eight feet long. Of these, and many such marvels,
we, however, have before us "full, true, and particu-
lar accounts." One story, that of the Ross-shire
Advertiser, must have special mention. The sky at
Balvullich, on the estate of Ord, gave birth, "imme-
diately after one of the loudest peals of thunder ever
heard, to a large and irregularly shaped mass of ice,
reckoned to be nearly twenty feet in circumference,
and of a proportionate thickness." They must put it
"in a bottle as a curiosity," and exhibit it, side by
side, with the eel of Ardrossan. It seems that " our
own correspondents" of the daily papers, in one or
two foreign countries, have been nearly as hard up
for news. We commenced reading of a ministerial
crisis abtyMte
Madrid, and
dnwaenrneo,
uantcetinheenctotnhealtus,i,oNn,atruvkatelzi
still suffers from Tic Doloreux." Fearing to become
a fellow-sufferer from sympathy, we desist.—Hull
Advertiser.

•
REFUSAL OF A CLERGYMAN TO BURY TEIE BODY
OF A BURGLAR.---It will be recollected that a few days
since a young man was killed by jumping from the roof
of a house while attempting to commit a burglary in
Oxford. street. It appears that he was the younger son
of a tradesman who resided in the parish of St. Paul,
Covent-garden, for nearly half a century, and who is now
in business in Wardour-street. The father claimed his
son's body after the coroner's inquest, and was desirous
to procure his burial in his own family grave in the
churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent garden. The usual
fees for breaking the ground were paid by an under-
taker, and three o'clock on Saturday afternoon was the
time fixed for the funeral to take place. After the grave
had been opened, the Rev. Mr. Jones, curate of the
parish, having ascertained the circumstances under
which the deceased met his death, positively declined to
read the funeral service over the body. The Rev. Mr.
Hutton, the rector of the parish, being out of town, Mr.
Jones at once sought an interview with the Bishop of
London, with a view to obtain his sanction in refusing;
and (it is said), although the Bishop de-
clined to insist, he advised Mr. Jones to
read the service in order to avoid any-
thing disagreeable occurring in the churchyard.
Mr. Jones entertaining strong conscientious objections
to perform the ritual in such a case, still declined, and
communicated his intention not to do so to the deceased's
family, who were equally determined to bury their
relative in their own private grave; and a very unplea-
sant scene appeared imminent. The facts having been
communicated to Mr. Wilkinson, of Tavistock-street,
who is one of the parish churchwardens, on Saturday
morning, that gentleman endeavoured to persuade Mr.
Jones to overcome his scruples, but without effect; and,
as the period for the arrival of the corpse drew near,
the greatest anxiety was entertained as to the conse-
quences of his refusal. At length Mr. Wilkinson pro-
ceeded to the Clerical Club, in Southampton-street, and,
having stated the whole circumstances to several clergy.
men present, one of their number, the Rev. Edward 0.
Morgan, late of Stockwell, consented to act, purely, we
believe, from a conviction that, when duly called upon, a
minister had no right to refuse to perform the service.
The body arrived at the church a few minutes before
thet
the
clergyman reached the sacred_ieidchifictet,iemourners but, beyond
were
painful state of suspense in which
kept, no inconvenience arose. The deceased, though ,
. only
19 years of age, was stated to be an adept in crime and
a detective officer present painted out to the reporter,
among the crowd near thegrave, two or three well- known
cracksmeu.
INCENDIARISM AT HENDON.—During the greater
portion of Saturday night and the whole of yesterday
(Sunday) the village of Hendon presented an unusual
scene of confusion, in consequence of a diabolical at-
tempt having been made to destroy the whole of the
extensive property belonging to Mr. Jackson, known as
Coventry Farm, situate in the above-mentioned village.
It appears that at ten o'clock , on Saturday night flames
were seen to rush forth almost simultaneously from two
places in the stack-yard. One part of the property on
tire consisted of seventy waggon-loads of hay, and the
other containing upwards of sixty loads of this same
material. Two parish engines attended; but in spite of
the most strenuous exertions of all present the work of
devastation continued. The moment information reached
town, Mr. Staples, chief officer of the C district of the
fire brigade, started to the scene with an engine and
four horses. It was not until late yesterday afternoon
that the fire could in the least be got under, and not
until a vast quantity of the property was destroyed.
The fire at four o'clock yesterday afternoon, though all
danger of its further extension was over, was far from
being entirely extinguished, and at that hour an engine
was still working on the flames. Upwards of 360 loads
of hay were standing in the same part of the premises;
and it was owing to the indefatigable exertions of the
villagers and firemen from London that the whole wasthe
not consumed. From the inquiries instituted sin
outbreak, not the least doubt is entertained
The tlicaet the
fire was caused by some evil-disposed person.
di-
rection the flames commenced in cleaVeydbyaccident.
indicate that
the outbreak could not have .been
Fortunately Mr. Jackson was Ensured u
Cain the Union Fire-
office.
TUE LATE
MR. HENRY HETHERINGTON.—Yes.
terday, at half-past two o'clock, the mortal remains of
the late Mr. Henry Hetherington were conveyed from
his residence, in Judd-street, for interment at the Ceino..
tery,
Kensal green. The solemn Ceremony, which took
place in accordance, with his will, was conducted by the
undertaker in a somewhat extraordinary manner, the
mourners, on the female side, wearing silk, drawn, and
straw bonnets, with coloured ribbons, and their usual
day dresses. The procession consisted of a hearse,
drawn by two horses, about 30 cabs, and 300 or 400
persons on foot. On either side of the hearse was a
blue silk covering, with the motto, in silver letters, " It
is our duty to endeavour to leave the world better than
we found it;" and at the back, " Henry Hetherington."
We understand that the Hon. Mr. Bancroft, the
accomplished Minister of the United States at this
Court, returns to his native country in the Europa mail
steamer of the Ist of September.