The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-04 00:00:00

A YOUNG HEROINE.

The following letter, addressed by Captain Biden,
master-attendant at ladras, to the editor of the
Madras Spectator, gives a circumstantial account of
the heroic conduct of a Miss Arnold, during a voyage
to Aden :

" The following remarkable and most exciting narra-
tive cannot fail to be interesting to the public, and,
should it ever meet the eye of the dear young lady to
whom it relates, I am confident the grateful mention
here made of her naval guardians, together with her
own amiable and generous disposition, will induce a free
pardon for the liberty I have taken in thus pro-
claiming to the community at large the relation of
events pre-eminently worthy of the highest testi-
nonial. The Rainbow, from Southampton to Aden, ar-
rived there about the 16th ult. ; Captain Arnold, her
late commander, died ten days before the ship reached
that port, and the chief mate was so habituated to
drunkenness that ho had been confined to his cabin
several times daring the passage. The captain's
daughter, about sixteen years of age, was on board, and
after her father's death the second mate, who had
assumed the command, made a daring and insidious
attempt to entice the young lady and run away with
the ship. She indignantly and successfuily repelled all
his base and dastardly attempts, and although suffering
under a painful bereavement, she at once rushed on
the quarter-deck, and made a public appeal to the
ship's crew as British seamen, and threw herself on their
protection; this well.judged resolution had the desired
effect, tha seamen (except two of their number, who were
led away by the second mate) declared, with that manly
feeliii... which sailers have so often displayed, that they
would to a man protect her from all harm, and told the
second mate and their misguided shipmates, in very plain
terms, that if he dared to take the slightest liberty with
their late commander's daughter, they would pitch him
overboard, and any one else who dared follow his example
would share the same futc. Miss Arnold then, with
great presence of mind, begged the ship's company would
grant her one special favour; her character, her manners,
and the well-titned appeal which she had already made,
induced the crew to declare their assent to any favours
she might ask. She then said that the safety of the ship
and ht r own security from insult could only be insured by
throwing overboard that instant every drop of spirits in
the ship. Without hesitation the ship's company con-
sented, and, losing no time tor reflection, they forthwith
got the spirits en deck and threw every drop over-
board. From that time Miss Arnold had her
screened cut secured near the wheel, and slept along-
side the binnacle, and three of the crew kept
a faithful watch around her during the remainder of
the voyage. These faithful guardians of one of our
beloved countrywomen never failed to evince the utmost
respect and preserve the most rigid decorum, honourable
in 'every point of view to themselves, and to that charge
which they had pledged themselves to undertake. Miss
Arnold wrote a statement of all these occurrences, and
forwarded it to Captain Haines, on the ship's arrival,
when the second mate and the disaffected men were im-
mediately arrested and sent to prison. The chief mate
had indulged himself to such an excess, that alter the
captain's death, and the absence of all means of
resort to his favourite stimulants, he was per-
fectly useless. Miss Arnold has been well educated,
and is an amiable, unaffected person; her strength of
mind and energy of deportment need no further com-
ment ; she became the welcome guest of Captain
Thomas at Aden, and every possible attention was shown
to this noble-minded lady by the whole society there.
Her dignified and virtuous conduct is beyond all praise,
and is well worthy the highest honour and reward
which can possibly be bestowed, whilst the exemplary
conduct of the Rainbow's devoted crew is deserving of
every encomium. I shall endeavour to obtain their
names, and they may, one and all, rely on my endea-
vours to serve them, should either or the whole of them
fall in my way.
"I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
"Madras, Oct. 18, 1848." "CHRIS. BIDEN.
Subsequent to Miss Arnold's charge against the second
mate, Captain Haines applied to her for a circumstantial
statement of all that occurred on board the Rainbow
after her father's death. Miss A. complied with his re-
quest immediately, and her narrative was so well and so
ably written that it excited admiration on all sides. At
her solicitation her father's remains were preserved in a
cask of spirits, and buried at Aden the day after the
ship's arrival. She had always kept his aceounts. Tho
second mate navigated the ship, but several of the crew
knew the proper course to Aden, and all his proceedings
were narrowly watched.

THE MISERIES OF A METROPOLITAN MIDDLE-
CLASS DWELLING.—A floor, consisting of two or three
rooms, is his ultimatum—small, ill ventilated, and with-
out a single convenience but what is in common
with the other lodgers. All this is to be borne with,
for there is no choice. After the business of the
day is over ho returns home, depressed iu
mind and body, but, alas! it is no home to him; his ears
are assailed with the annoyances which his family have
met with in the course of the day from various
causes; the closet smells offensively, and the drains
are no better. What is to be done? The landlord,
who lives in the kitchen, must be spoken to on the
subject ; he affirms there is no cause of complaint,
it is all imaginary, or very likely that it arises from the
carlessness of his (the tenant's) own family. Again, the
poor man is informed by his better halt that the coals
aro gone : she cannot understand it—she is stu_rwe
they are stolen. The coal.cellar is under
~,,1 e
kitchen stairs, with no lock on the door. , II
k the
hints to the good man his landlord about a l?ocpar'.
a__
reply is, does he think that people are tbieve.stin
atter' IP,:
he had better leave if he is not satisfied._
ground floor,
puts up with; not to mention having
they call, insulted by the people. o
as
the
coo n 337
who reply to their knock or g,
riflurniture is spoiled ;
be. The chimney smokes,
hisbe left open in the
when
the windows are obliged to his
j o friends,.
wife has the toothache, his
midst of January ; .
his
sonfined to her bed; the doctor
daughter takes cold,
declaresls. it to be a lever. The house is
is called in, who
i
notice is given, and he leaves,
only unhealliw,
Ys;sWe evils at a different addrees,
only to Under g? t
it is what the reduced s"
but gentle-
'This is a sad picture,
..t. 1 ,
the single lady le i t an annuity, the struggling
loan, the wan, the. brilnlit'ef3 or merchant's clerk, and
bers, hare to undergo daily.
many or Does the moneved
wan, who pruploya this poor gentleman and such of his
class, and i41(11 whom he oaily CCTIM in contact, ever for
a moment reflect upon the greatevil l • inflicting•
he is in
the advances he makes upon such
property? I doubt it;
and may I ark why is it so, when he is told wou
ld
be t it
bc a good spec to invest some of ii.
tion of superior dwellings
for the middle classes? They
are much wanted, it could
not
fail to answer. Paris has
such, and so has Scotland her flats (floors), and they
pay well, and are fully •
occupied : why should it not be
so here?—Budder.

------..
DEATH OF CAPTAIN SEAVER.—We have received
an account of Captain Seaver's death, an event which
will be deplored by every one who loves patriotism, man-
liness, and truth. His death occurred on Saturday
morning last, at heath hall, near Newry,—.o4lol Pilot.

ANNUS MIRABILIS.
(From the Examiner.)
1848 is a year, as we have said, that few of its
contemporaries will be disposed to praise ; unless
those, perhaps, who derive pleasure from political
events as from an exciting spectacle. And even
here, too, there is a drawback; for as the idle are
generally the well-endowed, or at least the sufil=
ciently endowed, the funds of such unproductive
classes have been too much affected and rendered
precarious by the events of 1848 not to • have afar
more alarmed than amused the desceuvres, or idle, of
our social state.
As to the upper classes of every grade upon the
Continent, from the wearer of a crown to the bearer
of a crest, never were they put in such a panic. Nor
have the pocr more reason to be contented. Even
where they did get possession of uncontrolled power,
they made such a very foolish use of it, in not
trusting it to the middle and enlightened class to
manage it for them, that their reign has ended by
their being crushed into the mire of Vienna and
Paris, and into as profound a depth of contempt at
Berlin.
The middle and industrious people have least suf-
fered. The ant is busy on its hill again, unmindful
of the earthquake that so lately made it vibrate. The
prince may not in a day re-erect the fallen columns
of his palace ; but the plough, the mill, the smithy,
and the shutte, are at work as if nought had hap-
pened. Great nations, however, must be supposed to
have at least some moments of reflection, and the
present moment is the natural one for such a re-
trospect.
What can France say on the Ist of January, 1149,
looking back to its anniversary on 1848 ? It can
merely say, that it has made a political sobresaut, and
finds its footsteps fixed pretty much as they 'were
before. There is indeed a different personage elected
as chief upon its shoulders, but he has a very similar
set of Ministers, with a budget of no leis weight,-an
army of no less expenditure, and with a Chamber of
representatives more numerous and more noisy, but
possessed of not more influence in the country,
than the Chamber of 1847. Louis Philppe, children
and grandchildren, have removed from the Tuileries.
and the gay bachelor, Louis Napoleon, has
begun his reign where his great uncle ended his, in
the Bourbon Elysee. There sat Napoleon after
Waterloo, four-and-twenty hours motionless, thun-
derstruck at the immensity of his fall ; and in the
same armchair may Louis Napoleon now have mo-
ralised on the immensity of his rise. Strange to say,
the very party, that of " the monarchy surrounded
with Republican institutions," which in the person of
Lafayette demanded Napoleon's resignation, is the
self-same party, represented by Odilon Barrot, which
has aided and inaugurated the elevation of Napoleon's
nephew. It has been at once the grave-digger and
the midwife of Bonaparte royalties.
If from moralizing on the Tuileries and the Elysee
Bourbon we take our flight to the Vatican, there we
find, or can no longer find, in the scarlet lady, the
causa teterrima of revolution. Metternich lays all the
blame of the year's hubbub upon the Pope, and poor
Pio Nono seems as penitent as Metternich himself.
The Romans are again trying their hand at that old
experiment, in which they alone succeeded—a popular
government that would prosper and conquer. But
with a population of priests, wax-light makers, and
sonneteers of idols and incense-burners, one may in
vain look for the indomitable hardihood of the days of
Romulus. If the France of 1849 has already lapsed
back into the France of 1848, name of dynasty alone
excepted, the Italy of 1849 seems destined to re.
become the Italy of any year during the last five
centuries, divided, oppressed, decimated, and con•
temned.
If we cross the Alps again, we find a more won-
derful restoration of the old state of things, after and
in despite of the most wondrous revolutions in all the
countries of Germany. The history of 1848, then,
has been that of the flux and:reflux of one gigantic
wave. The flux swept everything before it—kings,
courts, armies, and constitutions. But these baubles
floated, and the reflux in a few months' time has
swept them back with a no less vehement convulsion,
into their own old places. To be sure, the founda-
tions of these things must have been shaken, and
there may be doubts of their ever being set completely
straight again. But, for the time, Francis Joseph
seems to stand as firm as any one of his leaden an-
cestors, whilst Frederick William lifts himself as stiff
and erect as any statue of the pig-tailed and belted
Fredericks that adorn the royal babyhouses and
gardens of Potsdam.
The most dangerous and deeply mortified victims
of 1848 are certainly the Germans. The French may
shrug their shoulders, and reflect that a revolution,
that now seems to come unneeded, may well expire
unlamented. The Italians, who have been for cen-
turies the souffre-douleurs of their more powerful
and barbarian neighbours, have but to put on their
old sackcloth, and resume their mendicant's staff.
But the Germans wanted a revolution, had a right to
a revolution, and will in all probability net submit to
be cheated out of it. If we look upon the new year's
reflection of the Parisians with curiosity, and upon
those of the Italians with compassion, we look upon
the brooding brow of the German with feelings of
hope, of terror, and respect. He is of our kin, that
man. We wish him free, and we do not believe that
he will remain the only Pariah of Europe, excluded
ruin liberty and civilization.