The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-31 00:00:00

under that of the Financial Reform Association.
For we are satisfied by experience that until such
changes as those we have here insisted upon, have
been effected, the population will be liable to
the recurrence of those terrific catastrophes the
horrifying details of which have at intervals been
published in the columns of the public journals; and
that members of the industrious classes will now and
then be reduced to the most hopeless condition of
beggary in consequence of accidents against which no
human foresight can provide. If these social and finan-
cial improvements can be forced upon the consciousness
of the Legislature by occurrences like that which de-
stroyed the theatre in Wych street—a theatre long
celebrated for the elegance of its vaudevilles while
under the management of Madame VESTRIS, some-
thing more than a mere crumb of comfort will be
extracted from the calamity. Private misfortune, as
it has done a thousand and a thousand times before,
will result in a very extraordinary public advantage.

GERMANY

AND

THE NORTHERN STATES.

AUSTRIA.

The Cologne Gazette says the capture of Szegeden
is not confirmed. On the contrary, the Imperialists
are said to have quitted Kecskemet for strategic rea-
sons. 4,000 Hungarians have seized on Baja, on the
Danube. The Hungarians are still masters of Peter.
wardein. Those who asserted that the Austrians had
captured it forget that it would be necessary to
sacrifice 20,000 or 30,000 men to take it by assault.
It can only be reduced by famine.

PRUSSIA.
In the Second Chamber on the 27th the debate on
the Address terminated after a most formal and posi-
tive declaration on the part of Count Altrum, that all
the rumours respecting the existence of a Russian
note of a menacing character, relating to Denmark
and the German question, are devoid of foundation.

FRANKFORT.
The German Parliament, during the sitting of the
27th, decided, by a majority of 4 (267 to 263), in
favour of the hereditaryship of the German imperial
dignity. With reference to the question of the
supreme head of Germany there were three motions
before the House. The first (proposed by the Left)
was to the effect that the executive power be conferred
on a responsible president, chosen by the people for a
period of four years, every German being eligible.
This was rejected by a majority of 400 to 130. The
second proposed to bestow the dignity of supreme
head of Germany on one of the reigning German
princes. This was carried by a majority of 279 to
255. The third declared that dignity hereditary
in the house of the prince on whom it will be con-
ferred, the hereditaryship to be in the male line,
according to the rights of priniogeniture. This, as
we have said, was carried by a majority of 267 to 263.
The Assembly then voted the remaining paragraphs
re!ating to the supreme head of Germany. Those
sections declare that his title shall be Emperor of the
Germans ; that his residence shall be at the seat of
the Central Government; that he shall have a civil
list, and that he shall declare war and peace, appoint
Ministers, &c.

On a motion of M. ZELL that the House should
vote on all the clauses of the electoral law, without re-
considering or voting on the single paragraphs, the
House accordingly divided on the whole of the elec-
toral law, and the second reading of this law was
ordered by the almost unanimous vote of the House,
which adjourned almost immediately afterwards to
the 28th inst. The election of the German EMPEROR
will take place on that day.

ELECTION OF THE KING OF
PRUSSIA AS EMPEROR OF
GERMANY.
The adjourned division on the election of the here-
ditary Sovereignty of the German Empire was pro-
ceeded with in the sitting of the Frankfort Parliament
of the 28th inst. After some minor divisions on
amendments which had been moved by some Mem-
bers of the Left, the Speaker called on each indi-
vidual Member by name to pronounce the name of
the German Prince whom ha (the Member called
upon) wished to see at the head of the Empire.
The votes were given amidst the deepest silence ;
some Members would give no vote at all, and said
that they declined to vote—that they would elect
no Prince; and one of them, the Prince of WALD..
BURG ZEIL, protested that he was not an elector.
But those who declined to vote were merely excep-
tions to the general rule, and votes were given by
no less than 538 Members. The summing up of
the different votes showed that 290 voices had
been given for his Majesty the King of Paussra,
who was thus, according to the provisions of the Con-
stitution which has been enacted by Parliament,
elected to the dignity of an Emperor of Germany.
The number of Members who refused to vote on
the division was 248. When the news of the choice
of the Assembly spread out of doors the bells were
rung, and the air was filled with the cheers of the
people. A deputation of 24 Members, with the
Speaker of the House, is about to proceed to Berlin
to offer the Imperial Crown of Germany to the King
of PRUSSIA.

DENMARK AND THE DUCHIES.
It is feared that hostilities will be resumed almost
immediately. The King of DENMARK refuses to
accept the conditions proposed by the Central Go-
vernment, which in its turn refuses to assent to Lord
PALMERSTON'S project.

VICE-CHAIN CER Y.—(THIS DAY.)
(Before Vice-Chancellor KNIGHT BRUCE.)
IN THE MATTER OP TOMLINSON.
It will be remembered that this cause, which has been
several times before the Cuurt, is a petition by Mrs.
Tomlinson, the wife of a wine merchant in Dublin,
from whom she is living separate, to be allowed to retain
the custody of her child, two years old, of which the
husband seeks to deprive her.
The collateral question was argued yesterday by Dr.
Adams and Dr. Twist, from the Ecclesiastical Court,
whether the pleading by a wife to a suit instituted
against her by her husband for the restitution of con.
jugil rights, that the husband had admitted the com-
mission of adultery by him, was a sufficient defence,
without pleading the fact of adultery, and whether the
cohabitation of the wife with the husband after acts of
cruelty on his part was a condonation of the cruelty.
His HONOUR gave judgment on this collateral point
this morning. He said the child in question being only
a fortnight more than two years old, and the mother
having been living in a state of separation from her hus-
band, and that separation still continuing, and it being
clearly proved that the child is of a weakly constitution,
and it being unquestioned that it required the particular
and kind attention of the mother ; the proceedings also
in the Ecclesiastical Court, and those before Mr. Justice
Matteson, having been begun before the petition was
presented, and being in the state in which they are at
present—he (the Vice-Chancellor) should have thought
it right now to make an order relating to the custody of
the infant, without directing the petition again to stand
over, had there appeared to him a probability of the
mother's success in the suit pending in the Ecclesias-
tical Court—that was to say, in establishing
that she was justified in living apart from
her husband. Judging as well as he (the Vice-Chan-
celler) could upon such a matter, he was of opinion that
there did not appear to him to be a reasonable ;prospect
that she would succeed. He desired to be understood as
saying that upon the assumption of the trustworthiness
of the facts that had come out in the hearing, namely,
the undisputed age of the child, whose birth took place
in March, 1847 ; the undisputed fact that the allegation
in the ecclesiastical suit did not charge adultery, except
as it charged the assertion by the husband to her brother
in the course of a particular evening in July, 1846, when
the assertion was stated to have been made that he had
committed adultery with a married woman; the undis-
puted fact also, that not a single act of violence towards
his wife, subsequent to the year 1845, is
pleaded in the ecclesiastical suit, or stated in
the affidavit; and the unquestioned fact, moreover, that
from some time in that year, and the separation which
took place in July, 1845, the husband and wife were
living together as husband and wife. The petitioner,
however, contended on the truth of the case, she was
justified in living apart from her husband, and that
whether or not she might succeed in the Ecclesiastical
Court, she was, according to the real facts and merits of
the case, entitled to some such order as her petition
sought. Now, whether she was right or wrong in that
contention, or in any part of it, he supposed depended on
the evidence; and she wished to add to the present evi-
dence by filing fresh affidavits. That being so, he ab-
stained from giving any opinion as to what effect that
fresh evidence, it admitted, would have. Considering
that the infant was at present in good hands,
in being intrusted to the care of the mother, what he did
now was to direct a continuance of the interim direction
and the interim undertaking, which at present existed,
until the 23d April, or further order, with liberty to
apply; the petition to stand over and the affidavits to
be filed on or before the 12th of April.
(Before the Vice-Chancellor WIGRAM,)
ROWSE t 4 WAY.
The SOLICITOR- GENERAL applied that the minutes of
a decree made by his Honour in this cause some four
months ago might be varied on the ground of the mani-
fest erroneousness and inconsistency of that decree in
several particulars.
Mr. WOOD, for the defendants, submitted that the ap-
plication was exceedingly irregular and ought not to be
complied with.
His HONOUR, for the sake of the bad precedent which
might be established, was exceedingly reluctant to grant
the application, and took time to consider what answer
he would make to it.

MANSION.HOUSE.—"Yesterday evening the Lord
Mvor and the Lady Mayoress received at dinner the
Masters, Wardens, and Clerks of th• 12 Livery Com-
suies, and the §heriff4 9f 1491adca and J!.Licidloex.