The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-24 00:00:00

etnutna altit

LONDON, TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 1849.

The decision of the House of Commons on the
Navigation Laws, turns over the question to that
branch of the Legislature whose peculiar province is
to be cautious. There is a caution in doing, and there
is a caution in not doing ; a man may be drowned
through refusing to commit himself to the deep, as
well as by rashly determining to swim.
The majority in the House of Commons is not very
strong ; so there is opportunity for the Lords to
he imprudent if they like. The military Duke, who,
m a leader of armies, has been accustomed to look
before him, is understood to have made up his
mind in favour of the measure. i.The key to the
whole decision, is the probability or improbability of
a general return to protective duties. If probability
carries the day, then the mass of the hereditary legis-
lators, and others in a similar position, may have an
interest in tempting the dangers of refusing the Go-
vernment's measure. If on the contrary, the
chances of this are doubtful, the same parties have a
distinct interest in removing protection from all
minor objects, the grand one being despaired of.
Nobody is deceived by the false light thrown out,
in the way of protesting that there is no intention of
retrograding, but only of staying the further advance
Free Trade in a direction perilous to British naval
supremacy. There may be half a dozen country
-Members, who from old associations cannot get this
out of their heads, and act candidly upon the prin-
ciple. But the leaders of the Opposition in the
House of Commons make a " darkness visible" on
this point. They may pretend in words to main-
fain it, but in sense they deny it. In the great
show off of Protectionist eloquence on the second

v-ading, we had the diapason ending full, in
Protected and Regenerated England." And last
iiight the tone was substantially the same. The op-
pression of industry, the misery of the working
classes, the failure of Free Trade hitherto (meaning,
it is to be supposed, the lcss of all that
knight be gained by shutting up railways to
Lurse the post horse interest) were the reasons
advanced for the conduct of the Opposition. This is
not hafting, but laying down a retrograde march ;
and any who are misled by it, must have extraordinary
talents for being deceived.

The dangers at home are apparent enough. " Up,
Chartists, and at 'em !" will reasonably occur to his

Grace, as the fair translation of announcing that the
Anti-Liberals are to be restored. When Lord Jowl
is speaking on Kennington Common, and Air. TOP-
IC ELL breaking windows at Charing-cross, there will be
a wonderful alteration in the relative position of that
extreme portion of the Liberal party, with which, as
with any other card, the best must be done that may,
but no thanks to those who shuffle the pack to turn
it out.
Abroad, the fact will probably tell still more di-
rectly. The re-apparition of the diplomatists of 1815 in
England, calls for an entirely new policy on the part of
those who have been jogging under easy sail to pre •
vent their passengers from being sea-sick. If
the bags of .tom' olus are to be opened, there must
he no complaining at any dispersion of fleets
that now sail in company, nor any wonder at col-

lisions that will arise. In fact it will be a new sera,
and " every man for himself" must be the motto of
the season. France must prepare, first or last, for a
movement on her Belgian frontier, and a march to
Paris. Her natural and necessary proceeding must
be to take time by the forelock. She_ must be de-
mented, or be wooing a Restoration by foreign arms, if
a Protectionist majority in the House of Lords does
not let loose the imprisoned angels now struggling
between the Saone and Rhone, and leave them to
repeat the exploits of the army of Dijon of the first
Republic. Hungary and Italy should hold out ; for
France must intervene. All statesmen are bound
to calculate on men's doing what they would do
themselves. Once throw the English Conservatives
into the balance, and the scale may descend to depths
which imagination fears to follow.
Here then is meat for prudent men to chew on.
If there is a " prudence department" in the British
Government, a fine opportunity is given for history to
jot down the evidences of its use.

In publishing the last details of an execution which
must remain for ever conspicuous in the annals of
human atrocity, we would endeavour to remove
every vestige of that morbid sympathy which is too
frequently, and in the present instance most extra-
vagantly lavished upon the memory of an assassin.
Many may doubtless be influenced by their consti-
tutional sensitiveness so far as to attach some cre-
dence to the declaration of his innocence by JAMES
BLOMFIELD Ittrsa—a declaration which that wretched
man continued uninterruptedly to the awful moment
when he was hurried into the presence of an avenging
GOD. Impressed with a profound sense of the
very dubious and inconclusive character of any evi-
dence which is merely circumstantial, those persons
may be disposed to attach an unusual importance to
asseverations so solemn, so explicit, and so reiterated-
They may, while acknowledging that matters looked
very black in their bearing upon Ruses, still give him
the benefit of a doubt as to the mere possibility of his
not being the guilty monster he has been reputed.
They may say—After all, this man may not have been
the murderer of the Messrs. JERMY—his story about
Dick and Joe, improbable as it appears, may be cor-
rect—facts may ultimately turn up, as he himself has
declared again and again in the court of justice, in the
condemned cell, and even on the planks of the scaffold,
fixing the crime upon others, and proving him to
have been unjustly subjected to an ignominious
death. As to the suspicious circumstances brought
against, him in evidence—(they may continue to
reason)—stranger things than these have been found
explicable on many previous occasions. 'With regard
to the lantern, fur example, farmers usually require
lanterns when going over their fields at night. As to
the wig—Russ might, as he declared, have had his
head shaved during illness, and have purchased that
wig, not to use it as a disguise but as a covering.
Again, the testimony of the witnesses varied as to
the dress of the assassin—whether it was a cloak
reaching to the knees or to the ancles—whether it
was held up or allowed to fall loosely. Then it would
be a terrible, and even dangerous, precedent to hang
a man who was sworn to be under a masquerade,
which, even according to the statements furnished
by the witnesses themselves, was sufficient to con-
ceal any person's identity, the form and the features
being muffled up effectually in a flowing gar-
ment, a broad hat, a wig, and a mask I Was
it likely either, as the accused himself suggested, that
one man would have the temerity to enter a large
house numerously inhabited to shoot one individual
after another ? Is it not more probable that there
were at the least two or three assailants ? And is it
rational to suppose that one so well acquainted with
the localities as Rush would have the madness to go
round by the servants' quarters after having fired at
Mr. JERMY the Elder, and at Mr. JERMY the
Younger ? Even now we ourselves hear these argu-
ments advanced by intelligent persons not unaccus-
tomed to scrutinize the mazes of systematic chicanery
and deception. We would at once and for ever put
an end to all these morbid reservations of judg-
ment as to the criminality of Rusu by a few
very simple comments on the facts adduced in evi-
dence against him—facts which brand his name with
an infamy, the like of which has never presented
itself even before the most dismal imagination.

Nothing was wanting in reason to fix the guilt of
the double assassination upon the occupant of Potash-
farm. First and foremost of all, there was the motive.
Secondly, there were all the collateral circumstances
showing that Russ' wasvabsent from his dwelling at
the time when the assassinations, were perpetrated.
Thirdly, there were all the contradictions and preva-
rications of his defence. Fourthly, there were those
sinister blots upon his previous history, and those
evil peculiarities in his temperament, which marked
him out as a vicious man, and consequently as a man
not incapable of committing such atrocities. As to
the motive, it was obvious ; it was more than ob-
vious, it was glaring. There were the forgeries
written by: the hand of his unfortunate paramour
at his own express instigation. RUSH had an inte-
rest contingent upon the death of the Recorder of
Norwich ; and the forged documents found in the
secret closet at Potash-farm demonstrate that he had
a particular interest in the demise of Mr. JERMY be-
fore another forty-eight hours had elapsed. It was
notorious, moreover, not only to their two house-
holds
but to the whole surrounding neighbourhood,
that there existed serious differences between the
murdered men and the reputed assassin. Those dif-
ferences were known to have latterly become
greater and greater, insomuch that the mutual dis-
like of Rosa and JERMY had gradually rankled
into hatred. The former had been heard more
than once to threaten vengeance against
the latter—not only in the low haunts of
depravity which, unhappily, tend to propa-
gate so much moral corruption in the metro-
polis, but in the presence of witnesses whose
testimony might reasonably be regarded as credible.
Again, as to the collateral circumstances which we
consider to have been sufficient almost of themselves
to attest the criminality of the ruffian who was exe-
cuted on Saturday, he was away from Potash-
farm during precisely the interval required for the
perpetration of the crime and for the traversing of
the distance between that residence and Stanfield
Hall. He was away at the time the murders were
committed. He returned home later in the evening,
in an extraordinary state of agitation. He
was pale, restless, and trembling. He even
told his mistress that something dreadful
had just occurred up at the hall, and warned her, in
case any one came in the morning to make inquiries,
to say that he had been out only so long and at such
an hour. On the arrival of the policemen at day-
break, a mask, a wig, a lantern, one or two short
guns, and a cloak still damp with
with the rain,.were disco-
vered on the premises—all coinciding
des-
cription given by those who had seen the disguised
murderer overnight. Then as to the contradictions
of the prisoner during the defence and cross-exami-
nation. His absurd and rambling story about Joe,
and Dick, and the nameless attorney, were beyond
all credence. The
clothes buried in theextrpai7gagsatynet f ,
aarb of he
dle e
at e n the
the sow, was an insult to the common sense of
which, the flat denial given to manyyomf ehni;
Baron ROLFE and the twelve jur
Besides
s
were simply indicative that his object was intimida-
tion,and that the attempt at extorting a deceptive con-
fession was a signal failure. As to the odium attached
to the name and reputation of Rusx, prior to the great
catastrophe which ultimately led to the tremendous
expiation of his offences—it is a matter of notoriety
to the whole country side, and had extended even into
the streets and wine shops of the capital.
Knowing these things, and recognising the
preternatural guilt of this atrocious murderer,

the obduracy of his whole conduct up to the
time of his execution, exhibits a pheno
menon of atrocity such as must, we pray to Heaven, I
remain for ever without a parallel. The hypocrisy
of his execrable life has been consummated by the
death of a liar, whose lie is nothing short of being
blasphemous. The hardihood of his callous and un-
flinching nature has been carried to the some of the
most hideous impiety and of the most demoniacal
daring. After a series of deceptions which of them •
selves were sufficiently horrible, he has had the auda-
city to brave the presence of the DEITY steeped in the
crimson of crime, and yet a'ssuming to himself the
whiteness of innocence.

Since the discovery of the last acts of villany per-
petrated by this great criminal terrible suspicions
have started from the obscurity of his past history.
In the October of 1844, his step father, a farmer
of Felmingham, was discovered in the kitchen of
his dwelling. house, dead, with a gun 13 ing
by his side, and the whole of its contents lodged in
his skull. Although the verdict delivered by the
jury on the coroner's inquest was one of accidental
death, the entire county regarded the deceased as
having been murdered by JAMES BLOMFIELD Rosa,
at that time a farmer and auctioneer, at Wymondham.
In the August of 1848, the mother of this unnatural
miscreant was so ill as to require the attendance
night and day of a prokssional nurse. One night this
nurse, according to her own statement, was desired
by RUSH to go to bed, the latter remarking
that he would sit up with the invalid. The
woman had scarcely laid her head upon her
pillow when RUSH crept into the room, ap-
parently to find out whether she were asleep or awake.
Early on the following morning he informed the at-
tendant that his mother had died during the night ;
and, on the nurse entering the apartment of the de-
ceased, she found to her amazement that Rusu had
himself laid out the corpse without calling for assist-
ance. To crown the infamies of this unexampled vil-
lain, everything betokens on his part an intention to
murder his paramour. The dagger found under his
mattress, the secret closet, and the hollow flooring, all
evince on his part a determination to remove, at the first
opportunity, the only formidable witness against him,
the only witness whose testimony could lead to his
conviction. Had he been less unnerved on the night
of the •double assassination, had he found EMILY
SANDFORD sleeping on either of the occasions when
he entered her room during the darkness, it is not
improbable that he would have availed himself of
that interval to destroy her and to make away with
her remains. Happily, however, fur that miserable
girl the period of punishment followed with an awful
rapidity the footsteps of this matchless murderer. He
could no longer dream of impunity. After a life in-
conceivably compounded of ferocity and hypocrisy
he encountered a death unutterably sombre, hopeless
and ignominious. He descended into the shadows of
the grave with a hideous affectation of piety, and
confronted the Majesty of the Omnipotent GOD with
the sneer of indifference and the defiance of a lie.

Now that the corpse of the murderer is rotting in
degraded obscurity, and that his memory is corrupt-
ing into an infamous oblivion, we can only look back
upon the records of his career with a shudder of
astonishment.

TUE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris papers of yesterday.
The National Assembly yesterday passed the Bill
awarding compensation to the French colonists for
the abolition of slavery. The Bill allows for this
purpose six millions of francs in the Five per Cent.
Rentes, and six millions of francs in money; one-
eighth part of the six millions of Rentes, which goes
to the colonies of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and the
island of Bourbon, is to go- to the establishment of a
bank in each of these colonies. The third reading
will take place in a few days.
The Assembly has refused the demand made by
M. BONNELIER, for liberty to prosecute M. TAS-
CHEREAU for a libel inserted in the Revue Retro-
spective.

The Moniteur announces that a telegraphic dis-
patch had been received by the Government from
Marseilles, dated the 22d instant, 10 A.M., and stat-
ing that at that instant the expedition for Civita
Vecchia was leaving the harbour. When the news
reached the Bourse the funds fell one per cent. It is
generally considered that the Government has been
too hasty.
The Debats says that it has reason to believe that
there is some truth in the rumours in circulation for
some days past, of difficulties having arisen in the
course of the negotiations between Austria and
Piedmont. Austria demands an indemnity of two
hundred millions of francs for the expenses of the
war, and that the city of Alessandria should be given
up to her as a guarantee for the payment of that
money.
The PRESIDENT of the Republic reviewed the troops
stationed at Versailles on Sunday, and presented new
colours to some of the regiments.
The Moniteur publishes a notice that the Depart-
ment of Commerce has received an official notifica-
tion, dated Hamburgh, the 12. h April, that the Elbe
is blockaded by the Danish naval forces from that
date.

The Re forme contains a diplomatic note from M.
Ruscom, the Roman Minister of Foreign Affairs,
dated March 3, addressed to the different Powers,
for the purpose of justifying, by a reference to the
facts that have taken place, the determination of the
Roman people to establish a Republic. The writer
relies on the anathema of the POPE, followed by his
flight—the unconstitutional acts at Gaeta—the re-
fusal of the POPE to receive any message from the
Chamber of Deputies—and the country being left to
itself, as all affording justification for the formation of
a Constituent Assembly.
BOURSE.—PARIS, MONDAY, APRIL 23.

THREE o'CLocK.—Everything was weak on the Bourse
to-day. The news of the actual departure of the expe-
dition to Civita Vecchia is generally considered the cause
of the fall which has taken place of 1 franc since Satur-
day. Hitherto it was believed that the expedition would
be unnecessary, but the Roman Republicans seem de-
termined not to yield till forced to do so. Exchange on
London (30 days), 25 32i, money; ditto (90 days),
.25
20, money.
BUSINESS DONE IN FOREIGN RAILWAYS AT THE

LONDON STOCK-EXCHANGE, APRIL 23.
Northern of France, 111/9 —Paris and Rosen, 22%—
Rouen and Havre, 11%.

SPAIN.

Madrid journals of the 18th have been received.
The Ministry were in a minority in the Cortes on
the 16th with reference to a resolution proposed by
PoLo, to the effect that the functions of deputy are
incompatible with those of Government employs.
The Minister of Grace and. Justice opposed the reso-
lution, but the Cortes resolved to take it into consi-
deration.

CONCHA is, it is said, to be raised to the rank of
Captain-General in the army.
There is no truth in the report of the retirement of
CABRERA into France. On the contrary, he has de-
termined to continue the war with more activity than
ever, and has signified to CoiscuA that if a hair of
MARSAL'S head be touched, he will shoot the 81
officers who are in his power, and many of whom are
connected with the first families in Madrid. In
consequence the execution of MARSAL has been sus-
pended.
CABRERA arrived at Ardevol, near Cardona, on the
night of the Bth, and remained there on the 9th : he
is said to have brought with him 400 infantry and
100 cavalry, some of whom belonged to MARSAL'S band.
TRISTANI, Cosco, and other leaders were with him,
and he was joined there by NEGRE DR AGRAMANT,
with 25 cavalry. A large force of Government
troops, consisting of three columns, which had united
at Cardona, left that place on the 10th, under Briga-
dier PoNs, Colonel SOLANO, &c., to act against
CABRERA. -

MARSAL continued in prison at Gerona on the 11th.
CHARLES ALBERT has arrived at Corunna. His
late Minister, RATAzzr, is at Madrid, where he has
been feted by the Progresistas.
MADRID BOLSA, APRIL 18.—Five per Cents., 11*;
Three per Cents., 25 7-16, for account. Exchange on
London, 50.

THE VALUE OF DlAMONDS.—Diamonds are in
general weighed by the carat, which is a term well known
to jewellers, and equivalent to four grains. Thus a
diamond of
1 carat was worth ... XI I 10earats was worth £ 300
2 „ ... 16 20 „ ... 3,200
3 „ ... 72 130 „ 7,200
4 „ ••• ... 128 150 „ 20,000
8 ..• ... 200 100 „ ... 80,000
—Prof Tarrant at the Society of Arts.
A deputation on the navigation-laws, consisting of
Mr. John Mitchell, from Glasgow; Messrs. T. D. Dou-
glas, Allan Gilmour, H. M‘Gavin, George Henderson, and
George Smith, from Glasgow; and Mr. A. M. Burrell,
Provost of Port Glasgow, had an interview with Lord
John Russell yesterday, at his official residence in
Downing-street. The deputation was introduced by Mr.
Hastie, M.P., Mr. Bouverie, M.P., Colonel Mure, M.P.,
and Mr. Macgregor, M.P.
FEMALE SCHOOL OF DESIGN.—We should be glad
to know what has become of the Female School, formerly
of Somerset House. It was sent into lodgings some-
where in the Straed—on the same grounds, it would
seem, which led boards of guardians to send pauper
children to Tooting, and has never been heard of since.
—Builder,