The Sun.
London, England, 1849-01-09 00:00:00

r ~

LONDON, TUESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1849.

Within a few short weeks the Imperial Parliament
will assemble for the dispatch of divers urgent and
weighty matters affecting the welfare of the realm.
The representatives of the people will arrive recruited
and refreshed from their past labours. With renewed
strength and vigour they will enter upon their
arduous duties. Many questions of the deepest im-
portance will be submitted for their consideration.
The dropped measures of the past session will of course
be revived, and with, we trust, more fortunate
results than attended the efforts of their promoters
during the past session. The nation will no longer
sanction a system under which but 85,262 persons are
entitled to the legislative franchise out of a population
exceeding 8,000,000, or, in other words, under which
99-100ths of the people are wholly unrepresented.
The law of landlord and tenant in Ireland must be
revised, and very material alterations effected therein.
The Ministerial faith is pledged to the country, that
these matters will be attended to without the slightest
delay. The working of the Irish Poor-law must be
investigated, and measures for its amendment speedily
introduced. There are many other remedial enactments
for the sister kingdom relating to the reclamation of
waste lands, and the improvement of the fisheries, that
cannot be postponed or neglected—in fact, everything
by which the industrial resources of the nation can
be developed, and the social condition of the people
ameliorated, must be brought into operation.
The claims of Great Britain on the Legislative
attention are no less urgent. The important investi-
gation into the causes of the commercial distress,
which occupied Committees of both Houses, cannot
be permitted to remain barren and unproductive.
Important alterations must take place in our mone-
tary code. The mischievous restrictions imposed by
the Act of 1844 must be abolished, and a currency
provided adequate to the wants and exigencies of the
country. The entire scheme of taxation must be
revised, free-trade doctrines also extended.
The impolitic and iniquitous system of indirect
imposts must gradually be set aside and replaced by
direct taxation on an equitable foundation. Hard-
working professional men, enterprising merchants,
and industrious and upright tradesmen, must no
longer be called upon to contribute as largely
from their scanty and precarious earnings
as the possessors of accumulated and realised pro-
perty. The demand for economy and retrenchment
can no longer be slighted. As the Lord Provost of
Edinburgh stated at the recentmeeting in the Scottish
metropolis,
16 the nation has been seized with a fit of
thrift." Useless and unnecessary experAlture will
no longer be tolerated, jobs will be hunted out with
the most persevering determination, and abuses ex-
posed in all their naked enormity. Sanitary mea-
sures must be passed. The harrowing revelations
made by Mr. GEORGE WALKER in his able lectures,
to which we recently alluded, have limited the days
of intermural interments. " Our dead must be
buried out of our sight," and the desecration of their
remains can no longer be permitted to rend the hearts
of their surviving friends and relatives, or to scatter
disease and death among the overcrowded populations
residing in the neighbourhood of the civic church-
yards. lii either can educational matters be neglected.
The reproach of ignorance must be removed from the
people.
We do not profess to recapitulate the various mat-
ters- that must be brought under the Legislative
notice. The list could not be contained within
the limits of a single article. We have merely
ouggested very few of the- _ larl' important

matters that will unquestionably be submitted to
Parliament during the approaching session. At the
close of the past session, we had to lament a " grievous
catalogue of unperformed promises, of Bills altogether
withdrawn and postponed to a future session, or so
mutilated in their progress through the Legislature
as to be rendered comparatively useless." And yet the
session was one of unexampled duration, exceeding by
23 days the longest previously known. It was "a
laborious and protracted" session. There had
been no less than 44 public Commissions
of Inquiry, consisting of 15 Members
each ; 28 Election Committees, of 5 Members each ;
14 Committees on Railway Groups, and 17 on Groups
of other Private Bills, each of 5 Members and up-
wards ; and 112 other Committees on Private Bills,
of 3 Members each. Some of the Public Committees
continued their sittings throughout the session—that
on commercial distress sat 39 days ; sugar and coffee
planting, 39 days ; navy, army, and ordnance expendi-
ture, 40 days ; miscellaneous expenditure, 37 days.
One Election Committee sat 72 days, two others
nearly 20 days each, and many of the Committees of
Railway and other Private Bills sat for a considerable
time.*

When so much has been done, so many and such
complicated questions investigated—when the session
itself lasted for no less than 293 days, of which the
House sat 170 days, and when the average duration of
each sitting was 8 hours 16 minutes, we cannot im-
pute idleness or neglect of duty to its Members. To
what, then, are the deficiencies and backslidings of
the past session to be ascribed ? Clearly to the
erroneous system that prevailed—to the interminable
harangues of the ANSTEYS, URQUHARTS, et hoc
genus omne to the abuses 1 of,,i the forms of
the House—to the constant motions for adjournments
and the: opportunities thereby afforded for intro-
ducing matters perfectly irrelevant to the subject
under discussion—to the countings out of the House,
when hours of the utmost importance were absolutely
lost to the country from the temporary absence of
Members—and to the number of unnecessary divisions
and useless debates that were introduced on the
questions, " that then:Speaker do leave the chair,"
" that the report be now received," &c., &c. It is
to these abuses that have gradually arisen
that all the evils may be traced, and
unless some adequate remedies be introduced
we shall again have to lament a grievous waste of
time, neglected opportunities, and unperformed pro.
mises, at the close of the session of 1849.
The Committee appointed last session "to consider
the best means of promoting the dispatch of public
business," offered some valuable suggestions in their
report, although we do not conceive that they fully
met the exigencies of the case, or struck at the root of
the evil. A very valuable pamphlet has now appeared
from the pen of Mr. THOMAS ERSKINE MAY,t
a gentleman who has shown himself tho-
roughly acquainted with all the details of business,
and fully alive to the extent of the nuisance that must
be abated. The period of publication is peculiarly
well chosen. The time that must elapse before the
meeting of Parliament will amply suffice for the
most mature and attentive consideration of the re-
commendations contained therein ; while it will not
be so long as to permit the several matters to be
forgotten.
Mr. MAY has ably illustrated the extraordinary
amount of business transacted in every session,
the legislative activity of Parliament during the last
twenty years, and the excessive labour bestowed upon
the business of the country. He explains
the causes which contribute to the difficulties of
passing measures. He lays down the true principle
"that all regulations for the dispatch of business
must he consistent with ample freedom of dis-
cussion." However great the inconveniences which
may occasionally arise from abuses of speech, every
law must be the result of the freest deliberation.
[he public confidence cannot otherwise be retained.
Mr. MAY does not by any of his suggestions contem-
plate any abridgment of that right—it is only the
vexatious and annoying privileges that have been
grossly abused, and perverted from the objects for
which they were originally sanctioned, that he would

alter.
We shall not now enter into the nature of these
suggestions. We can, however, heartily commend his
useful publication to public notice. It will be found
in every respect well worthy of perusal.

Embarrassments have not failed to spring up with
the rapidity of mushrooms round the august
personage who has been recently installed in the
Ely see Nationale. He has already experienced the
bitterness of the anxiety which invariably accrues to
those who undertake the labours and the responsibi-
lities of Government. He has scarcely constructed
his inaugural Cabinet before the members of the
Administration are transformed from friends into
belligerents, from the suavity of colleagues into the
asperity of antagonists. The gorgeous couch of the
Presidentship is strewed, like those of PriarcLEs and
AUGUSTUS, with thorns as well as with roses. Far
from exulting over these misfortunes—as too many
of our Contemporaries appear disposed to do—
we cannot but regard the position of Louis
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE as one eminently en-
titled to excite our sympathies. Carried to his
present magnificent elevation by the sponta-
neous votes of nearly seven millions of electors, he
is invested by the highest and most legitimate of all
authorities—the authority of the people—with the
powers and prerogatives of his illustrious office.
For this reason he possesses the loftiest of
all claims upon the respect of Christendom. He
is the visible emanation from the popular will. He
has been consecrated by the chrism of the multitude—
their almost unanimous enthusiasm. He has been
proclaimed the Chief Magistrate of the French Re
public by the Ballot and by Universal Suffrage. In
offering the indignity of ungenerous derision, there-
fore, to the President BONAPARTE, we are
directly insulting the majesty of the millions of
France. In paying due regard to the power reposed
in the hands of that democratic administrator, we
are proffering the worthiest homage to the intellects
of thirty-six millions of human beings. It is well
that these reflections should not be overlooked ; or,
otherwise, we may inadvertently degrade our na-
tional character by a repetition of those brutalities
and puerilities which cast an indelible slur upon the
last generation. Blinded by an ignorant animosity,
England, instead of recognizing in the Emperor
.NAPOLEON one of the most legitimate Sovereigns
that ever wielded a sceptre, treated him only as a
subject for obscene calumny, for petulant lampoons,
for insolent and brutal vituperations. The result of
this was, in 1804, the rupture of a treaty of peace
which might otherwise have been permanent. It
plunged the whole of Europe into a war which lasted
for ten years, without cessation, leaving the English
to groan over the frightful extension of their national
debt, and the French to exclaim with mingled re-
morse and indignation—
" Lui qui un Pape a couronnee
pct mort dans une Isle deserte 1"
Since then France and England have equally ex-
piated their shortcomings, their sins of omission and
commission. And now, as a sublime tribute of re-
pentance and admiration to the manes of the great
hero who reposes in his imperial tomb on the
banks of the Seine, the exiled KING of
'the Westphalians has come in his old
age to watch over the ashes of the Immortal Dead,
while the representative of her Britannic MAJESTY is
ranked the second amongst the foreign ambassadors
to the Presidential Court of a BONAPARTE.
At such a time as this—when history speaks to us
in a voice so eloquent—telling us of the miseries and
the ignominies which emanated from the rancorous
ignorance of the last generation, let us not, in the
name of everything that is just and rational, resume a
course which has proved to be so marvellously
debasing and disastrous ! Let us reap the harvests
and gather in the vintages of experiences
and (to employ an elegant phrase of the
poet KEATS) let that experience be productive to
ourselves and to our neighbours of
" The bread of friendship and the wine of love."
Previous to his election by the French nation as their
First President, Louis NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
possessed, doubtless, but small claims to the attention
of the world beyond that arising from the accident of

* Report of Committee on Public Business.
6, t Remarks and Suggestions, with a view to facilitate
the Dispatch of Public Business in Parliament. By
Thol§3 Erbkino May." lii4way; Idcwl9l3, 1649,T2. 36.

his birth—an accident which had rendered him the
representative of the most remarkable family of
modern times. Beyond that, and beyond the cir-
cumstance of his being the author of several ingeni-
ous productions, and of one very profound and saga-
cious treatise relating to the science of the military
profession—Lows NAPOLEON BONAPARTE may be
said to have possessed no claims whatever upon the
consideration of the multitude. His position at the
present moment is directly different. His claims
upon the respect of the world are supreme and para-
mount they are the claims derived from
the suffrages of seven millions of electors,
Bowing down in homage to the will of a
great people, we respect in the President Louis NAPO-
LEON BONAPARTE the Representative of the sagacity
and the aspirations of Republican France. That he
is embarrassed with difficulties is attributable not to
any want of capacity on his own part, but rather to
the anterior calamities which have befallen his
country. Out of a deficit of 20,000,000 Z. he cannot
surely be expected to pour opulence into the Treasury
within the space of a fortnight. Out of a numerous
population of destitute and unemployed ouvriers, he
cannot, in common reason, be required to make, in a
couple of months, a community of busy and flourishing
citizens. It is objected against the PRINCE President,
that he has done nothing. But, in the name of Heaven,
what time has he had to do anything? Four weeks.
Four weeks! And are men then such dolts as to
believe that any statesman, however miraculous his
capabilities for the renovation of the multitude, can,
in four weeks, drag thirty millions of the human race
from an abyss of confusion and destitution ? True,
that discord has been provoked among the holders of
the Ministerial portfolios by the haughty missive ad-
dressed to the Minister of the Interior by the newly
inaugurated PRESIDENT. But let any man, how-
ever conciliatory his disposition, ask himself
if some consideration should not be given to
the indignation naturally aroused in the bosom of the
Chief Magistrate of the Republic, who, elected to his
high office by seven millions of votes, finds himself
treated as a mere puppet by the men entrusted by
him with the seals of administration ? A candid re-
sponse to this question will afford, at least, a partial
justification to the tone of the letter which recently
led to the retirement of M. LEON DE MAILEVILLE.
In scrutinizing the proceedings of President BONA-
PARTE, we should never lose sight of the astounding
difficulties by which his whole Administration is en-
compassed ; we should regard with leniency the
errors into which his bold, but inexperienced tempe-
rament, is occasionally seduced; and, above all, we
should award to hint those reasonable sympathies
which were formerly due to him as a child of exile,
but which are now, in the days of his pomp and pros-
perity, more absolutely necessary than in the period
of his misfortunes.

We have hitherto cautiously abstained from
making any allusion to the case of Dr. JOSEPH
CARraturzit Bose'.As, of the Fishponds Lunatic
Asylum, near Bristol, although we have attentively
watched the whole course of the proceedings in this
case from the latter end of June last, when the sub_
ject of the management of that asylum was first
brought under the notice of the public, up to the
present month of January, when, after an investiga-
tion which had lasted many days, Dr. BoMPAs with-
drew his application for a renewal of his
license. In the comments which we feel
ourselves called upon to make on this ♦ery
important case, we, at the outset, in order
to guard ourselves from misconstruction, state that it
is not our intention to reflect in the slightest degree
on the professional skill or humanity of Dr. BOMPAS,
as compared with the skill or humanity of other
keepers of private lunatic asylums. We believe that
he is to the full as skilful, to the full as humane, as
any other keeper of a private lunatic asylum, and
that the Fishponds Asylum is as well managed as
the great majority of private lunatic asylums in this
country, because, whatever may be the abuses that
have heretofore existed in the management of that
asylum, abuses to the full as great exist in the
management of almost every other private lunatic
asylum. The fault is
.the fault of the system
rather than of the man—the fault is more especially
the fault of the Commissioners of Lunacy, who, by
their neglect, actually enticed Dr. Bourse into the
commission of offences against the law, by which he
has subjected himself to heavy penalties. In eighteen
months the superintendent of the Fishponds Asylum
committed, according to the report of the Chairman
of the Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions, 13 misde-
meanours, and in 90 cases incurred penalties to the
amount of 1,7101.; and yet the Commissioners of
Lunacy, Messrs. MYLNE and TURNER, who visited
the asylum on the 26th of April, 1848, con-
tent themselves with saying, "We must, how-
ever, impress on the proprietor the importance,
or rather the absolute necessity, of a strict observance
of the requirements of the Act of Parliament on that
head." How gingerly do these gentlemen speak of
a breach of the law by which they are appointed. Is
it thus that other functionaries speak of the provisions
of an Act of Parliament which they are appointed to
carry out? But the Metropolitan Commissioners of
Lunacy are not entitled to the credit of having given
even this admonition. It was forced from them by
report of the magistrates, Messrs. BATTERSRY, Frurr,
MIREHOUSE, and Dr. LYON, Wile, on their visit to the
Fishponds Asylum, on the 25th of April (the day
before the visit of the Commissioners of Lunacy),
made the following entry in the visiting book, which
was of necessity laid before the Commissioners :

" On our last visit, on the 20th of March, we drew the
attention of Dr. Bompas to the necessity of not admit •
ting patients without the certificates of two medical men,
unless in cases of emergency, and, if so, the urgency of
the case should be stated.
" There have been three admissions since we last
visited; two out of the three have been admitted on the
certificate of one medical man, and second certificates
signed by Mr. G-, after the patients had been in cus•
tody of Dr. Bompas.
" On the 23d of March Dr. Bompas sends his keepers
to Bath ; takes Mr. E. F., about eight o'clock in the
evening; puts him into a fly, with a strait-waistcoat,
conveys him to the Asylum, calling on Mr. G-, a
surgeon of the neighbourhood. Mr. G- gets into the
fly, where Mr. E. F. was sitting, and on which interview
he signs the certificate; he is brought here at 12 o'clock
at night, and Mr. E. F. assures us that he is put to bed
without fire or food. We have examined the patients,
all of whom we have seen, excepting Mr. G. U., who is
taking a walk.
" Mr. E. F. appears calm, tranquil, and rational. We
cannot take upon ourselves the responsibility of suggest-
ing his dismissal upon one interview."

It is not until their attention is directed in an
especial manner to these breaches of the law by the
visiting magistrates, that the Commissioners o
Lunacy deem it necessary to notice the matter,
and then they content themselves with making a
verbal inquiry, and even that: inquiry is not made of
the superintendent himself. The following is their
own account of their conduct in this affair : _ _

" Some explanation was given to us verbally by Mr.
George Bompas, respecting the irregularity or defective
nature of the certificates referred to in the magistrates'
entry yesterday, which, if it had been inserted, as it
should have been, in the original order, would have ob-
viated the defect."
It does not appear very clearly to what this "it "
refers (a knowledge of grammatical construction is
not probably considered a necessary qualification in
a Lunacy Commissioner), but it is abundantly evi-
dent that the Commissioners of Lunacy conduct
their investigations in a culpably careless manner ;
that they treat as a matter of little consequence
the observance of the provisions of the Acts of Par-
liament which they are appointed to administer; and
that they thus induce a correspondent carelessness
on the part of the superintendents of lunatic
asylums, who naturally think that the strict observ-
ance of the law is a matter of small importance when
they find those appointed to administer the law so
lightly treat a breach of its provisions. As we pro-
ceed we shall find abundant evidence of the careless
manner in which the Commissioners of Lunacy per-
form their duties, and of the absolute necessity which
exists for an immediate and sweeping reform in the
laws for the regulation of lunatic asylums.
The Fishponds Asylum was founded in the year 1738,
and in 1817 it became the property of Dr. BomrAs,
sen., the grandson of the founder. Dr. Bostres,
sen., died suddenly towards the latter end of the year
1846, and his license was transferred to his son, Dr.
Jowl" CARPENTER BOMPAS, and renewed to him
at the Midsummer Sessions of 1847. On his appli-
cation for a renewal of his license at Midsummer,
1848, the magistrates, having read the report of the
visitors, determined not to renew the license for
twelve months as usual, but only for three months, in
ordox to lA, g0ix04,5 fp opportanity of pecla-